
Class _HZ6il___ 

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Copyright 1^? 

COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 



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Author and Party ascending the Soufriere, 
Saint Vincent. 



OUR WEST INDIAN 
NEIGHBORS 

THE ISLANDS OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA, 
"AMERICA'S MEDITERRANEAN": THEIR 
PICTURESQUE FEATURES, FASCINATING 
HISTORY, AND ATTRACTIONS 
FOR THE TRAVELER, NATURE- 
LOVER, SETTLER AND 
PLEASURE-SEEKER 



FREDERICK A. OBER 

AUTHOR OF 

''CRUSOE'S ISLAND," "PUERTO RICO AND ITS 
RESOURCES," ETC. 



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. NEW YORK 
JAMES POTT & COMPANY 

1904 



Copyrighted 1904 by James Pott & Company 



Twoooptes «»«vivi»fl 

OCT 19 1904 

Oooyrfpht f rm-v 
CLASS a. XXc. No 

f/J-/s- 

COPV 8 



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Dedicated 

TO 

H. A. Alford Nicholls, M.D., C.M.G. 

OF 

ROSEAU, DOMINICA 
BRITISH WEST INDIES 

AS A 

Token of Friendship and Esteem 



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CONTENTS 



I. Bahamas, Isles of June . 

II. Historic Harbors of Cuba 

III. In Cuba's Capital and Roundabout 

IV. Railroad between Havana and Santiago 
V. The Cuban as He Was and Is . 

VI. Colonists and Capital in Cuba 

VII. Jamaica, Queen of the Antilles 

VIII. A Few Things to be Seen in Jamaica 

IX. In the Black and Brown Republics 

X. Haiti, the "Home of the Voodoo" 

XI. Misgoverned Santo Domingo . 

XII. Treasures in Sea and Soil 

XIII. America's Oldest City 

XIV. Puerto Rico, Spanish and American 
XV. Things Worth Seeing in Puerto Rico 

■ XVI. The Danish Islands and Virgins 

XVII. Three Little Dutch Islands . 

XVIII. Saint Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat 

XIX. Antigua, Barbuda and other Isles 

XX. Guadeloupe and the Diablotin 

XXI, Dominica, an Island of Wonders 

XXII. The Last of the West Indians 

XXIII. Martinique and Montagne Pelee 

XXiV. Saint Vincent and Its Soufriere 

XXV. Barbados, Grenada and Tobago 

XXVI. Trinidad, and the Islands' Resources 



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407 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Author and Party Ascending St. Vincent's 

SouFRiERE .... Frontispiece 



FACING PAGE 



Nassau's great Silk-Cotton Tree . 

Pineapples of the Bahamas 

Baracoa, Yunque Mountain in Background 

MoRRO Castle, Santiago's Harbor-Mouth 

Ruins of Fort, El Caney 

Palm Avenue, Gov. General's Garden 

Tobacco Workers and Reader 

Palms of the Yumuri Valley . . 

Spanish Blockhouse, Ciego de Avila. 

The House of Cortes, in Santiago . 

General Maximo Gomez and Family 

A Band of Cuban Patriots 

Royal Palm, Decapitated by Bullets 

Court of a Cuban House, Camaguey 

Kingston Harbor, Jamaica 

Palms of Priestman River, Jamaica 

Cocoa Grove, Coast of Jamaica 

Fording Cane River, Jamaica . 

Hut and Haitians of the Interior 

Ex-King of Dahomey, an Exile in West Indies 

Palm-Thatched Hut of the Mountaineers 

Puerto Plata — Santiago Railroad. 

Cathedral, Santiago de los Caballeros. 

Main Street and Mountain, Puerto Plata 

Santo Domingo City, over the Rooftops 

HoMENAjE Castle and Ozama River . 



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FACING PAGE 



Cathedral pAgADE, Santo Domingo City, 

Church and Plaza, Aguadilla 

Visitors at the Gibaro's Bohio 

MoRRO Castle and Part of San Juan 

Ruins of the Old Aqueduct, Caparra 

Cabbage Palms of the Leeward Coasts . 

Dutch Architecture of Curasao 

Principal Street and Tramcar, CuRAgAo. 

Scene on a Sugar Estate, St. Kitts 

A Planter's House in the Hill Country . 

Town and Harbor of Saint John, Antigua 

Cascade in THE Jardin des Plantes . 

The Boiling Lake of Dominica 

Tree Fern Cascade and Hot Waterfall 

A Group of Yellow Caribs 

Sago Palms, Jardin des Plantes 

The Sucrerie, Where Empress Josephine Lived 

Saint Pierre and Montagne Pelee . 

Saint Pierre, After the Eruption of 1902 

The Soufriere of St. Vincent 

Wallibou River and Valley . . 

Richmond Great House, Intact, and Destroyed 

Government House and Botanic Garden . 

Sand Hills and Cocoa Palms, Barbados . 

Harbor and Town of Saint Georges, Grenada 

Fountain and Avenue, Port of Spain 

The Pitch Lake at La Brea, Trinidad 



220 
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414 



Our 
West Indian Neighbors 



BAHAMAS, "ISLES OF JUNE" 

Their air of mystery and romance — Antillean outposts — Extent 
and distribution — Suggestive of the Lost Atlantis — Their 
amenities of climate — Bright seas and coral strands — Char- 
acter of their population — Their government — English rule 
and revenues — Historical beginnings — The aborigines and 
their remains — Native "thunderbolts" — Pirates and bucca- 
neers — Haunts of "Blackbeard" the pirate — Where he made 
a "hell of his own " — Alexander Selkirk's rescuer — Revolu- 
tionists, wreckers, and blockade-runners — Nassau : how to 
get there ; what to see there — What the Bahama " soil" 
looks like — Native animals and plants — The landfall of Co- 
lumbus — The Fountain of Youth — Home of flamingoes and 
parrots — The southern islands and their resources. 

WHILE the islands, islets, cayos, " cays " or 
keys, of that vast chain composing the Ba- 
hamas are estimated at more than three 
thousand in number, less than two score are, or ever have 
been for any length of time, inhabited by human beings; 
which fact may account for the air of mystery that still 
enshrouds them. 

They were the first discovered in the West Indies — 
the first revealed to Europeans — the first to challenge 
Columbus, when, in 1492^ he approached the then un- 



2 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

known and unnamed America ; they were explored by 
mail-clad conquistadorcs; warred over by England and 
Spain ; held for years by fierce pirates and buccaneers ; 
made the resorts of wreckers and blockade-runners ; and 
this may account for the halo of romance that still invests 
them. 

Although pertaining, strictly speaking, to the Atlantic, 
these Bahamas cannot be considered other than as out- 
lying islands of the West Indies, Antillean outposts, 
guarding the northern approaches to the Caribbean Sea. 
Through their portals Columbus first made his devious 
way to Cuba and me islands beyond ; threading their 
tortuous channels. Ponce de Leon came up from Puerto 
Rico, searching for the famed Bimini, Isle of the Foun- 
tain of Youth, and made himself an immortal by the 
discovery of Florida. 

Nearest of North America's insular neighbors in the 
West Indies, beginning just across the straits of Florida, 
the Bahamas extend southeasterly more than seven hun- 
dred miles, finally " petering out " in the Silver Shoals 
off the north coast of Santo Domingo ; but a prolonga- 
tion of the chain as superficially viewed on the map 
would take in the Virgin Isles and the Caribbees, which 
protrude like gigantic stepping-stones above the blue 
waters all the way to the Orinoco's mouth on the north- 
east coast of South America. 

And what daring speculations do these protruding 
peaks of submerged mountains suggest ! It is no new 
hypothesis, that they are the sole visible remains of a vast 
Caribbean continent, which once occupied what is now 
the basin of " America's Mediterranean " — the " Lost 
Atlantis," in fact, none else than that continent surmised 
by the ancients to exist beyond the fabled Oceanus, which 



BAHAMAS, " ISLES OF JUNE " 3 

even the scientists are now prone to regard as something 
more than mythic. The Tyrian navigators told of it, 
describing its beautiful scenery, its marble palaces, its 
glorious gardens of the gods, its rolling rivers and cloud- 
piercing mountain peaks. It engaged the attention of 
Plato, Solon, and the Egyptian magi; it aroused more 
than a passing interest in the Mediterranean navigators ; 
but ere it was explored, long before its mysteries were 
made known, it disappeared beneath the Atlantic waves. 
Atlantis, Atlantic, Atlantean: whence do we derive 
these words, if not from those " myths of a drowned 
continent," which "homeless drift over waters blank"? 

■ " Spirits alone in these islands dwelt 

All the dumb, dim years ere Columbus sailed. 

The old. voyagers said ; and it might be spelt 

Into dream-books of legend, if wonders failed. 

They were demons that shipwrecked Atlantis, affrayed 

At the terror of silence themselves had made." * 

This sinuous stretch of islands, extending over seven- 
teen degrees of latitude and as many of longitude, to- 
gether with the great sea which it separates from the 
Atlantic, has long been the " happy hunting ground " of 
scientists from the time of Humboldt to the present. 
Professor Alexander Agassiz, so long ago as 1879, ex- 
pressed the opinion that, in his extensive dredging oper- 
ations in the Caribbean Sea, he had brought to light the 
outlines of old continents, of which the islands inclosing 
that sea are vestiges. 

Alfred Russel Wallace, greatest of English naturalists, 
declares that the West Indies have been long isolated, 
and that " originally they probably formed part of Cen- 
tral America, and may have been united with Yucatan 
and Honduras in one extensive tropical land." Years 
* Lucy Larcom, in " Bermoothes." 



4 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

before him, Humboldt said : " The supposition of an 
oceanic irruption has been the source of two other hy- 
potheses on the origin of the smaller West Indian islands. 
Some geologists admit that the uninterrupted chain of 
islands from Trinidad [northeast coast of South Amer- 
ica] to Florida, exhibits the remains of an ancient chain 
of mountains." 

There seems to be a striking unanimity of opinion that 
the great barrier-chain of the Caribbean may present the 
vestiges of a sunken Atlantean continent ; but we must 
not lose sight of the fact that the Bahamas, which prop- 
erly extend from near Florida to Turk's Island, directly 
north of Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, are structurally 
distinct from the Lesser Antilles, or easternmost Carib- 
bees. The former are mainly of coralline formation, with 
no trace of primitive rock ; while the latter are chiefly 
volcanic in character — in the language of Humboldt, 
" islands heaved up by fire from the depths of the sea, 
and ranged in that regular line of which we find striking 
examples in so many volcanic hills in Mexico and in 
Peru." Between these two distinct chains is a fragmen- 
tary group of isles and islets, the Virgins, lying eastward 
from Puerto Rico, which partake of the coralline compo- 
sition of the Bahamas — at least, above the sea ; though 
they are probably erected upon volcanic bases far beneath 
the waves. 

These, however, are the views of the non-scientific, 
or, at best, the semi-scientific traveler, and are not put 
forth as in any sense authoritative. The geologists and 
geognostics have had their attention re-directed to those 
gems of the Caribbean Sea, by the terrible convulsion of 
nature that occurred in the Caribbees in 1902. It took a 
cataclysm to move them ; but, like the unfortunate islands, 



BAHAMAS, " ISLES OF JUNE " 5 

they were at last stirred to their very depths, and have 
been writing and talking ever since, so some valuable 
information may eventuate, which should be thankfully 
received by inquiring minds. 

One may possess an inquiring and receptive mind, and 
yet not desire to penetrate so far beneath the surface as 
lie the vast ocean beds. Still, it is better than not to 
start in at the beginning of things. The Bahamas have 
been considered worthy of investigation by minds the 
most profound: Quod crat demonstrandnm. Having 
done our duty, we may now journey on, with light hearts 
and joyful countenances. The old-school scientists, 
Humboldt, perhaps, and a few others excepted, persist- 
ently ignored mere beauty for beauty's sake, and were 
prone to plunge beneath the surface for the why and 
the wherefore. Then they came up and wrangled over 
what they had found. But it is not necessary, here in the 
Bahamas, to more than skim the surface of the shining 
seas, or at the most take a dip in the flashing waves that 
lave the coral strands, to find enough of interest to occupy 
one's time for weeks and months. 

The amenities of climate are so great, where the tem- 
perature preserves an agreeable and temperate mean 
throughout the year, without frost to nip or excess of 
heat to debilitate, that one is tempted to protract a stay 
indefinitely and become a resident. Therein, however, 
peril lies, as is attested by the wrecks, human and other- 
wise, that so plentifully bestrew the strands. 

Probably no equal area elsewhere, whether of land or 
water, has witnessed the foundering of so many argosies, 
as the Bahama, or Lucayan, Isles. Like the sands , and 
coral drift, the Bahaman population is constantly shift- 
ing; or else deteriorating. It may be said without prej- 



6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

udice that the black men introduced from Africa, to re- 
place the red men exterminated by the Spaniards, could 
not boast descent from a race superior to the American 
aboriginal. Neither have they proved their right to 
supplant them. Nearly every inhabited island is a Haiti 
in miniature, so far as the complexion of its people goes. 
The aggregate population is about 54,000. " the most 
part." says the statistical Whitaker, " being descendants 
of liberated Africans." The other part is composed 
chiefly of whites who would like to be liberated, but 
cannot, from their insular environment. 

Why ? In a word, because of their poverty. Notwith- 
standing the climatic amenities, the abundance of tropical 
fruits, the waters teeming with fish of every hue and 
almost every kind, the seas abounding with turtle to such 
an extent that green-turtle soup is " taken only under 
compulsion " ; notwithstanding all this, poverty is every- 
where prevalent. Sponge-fishing and salt-raking are the 
chief industries — although " industry " comes nearer 
being a misnomer here, where nobody labors, than any- 
where else on earth. 

Out of the sea come the chief revenues of the islands, 
and they are to be had for the gathering; yet every year 
displays an increasing deficit, and the public debt waxes, 
rather than wanes. This debt, according to the last 
published statistics, was $550,000. From the same 
source, we derive the information that the public revenue 
was £78,000, and. the public expenditure £8 1,000, leaving 
a deficit of £3000, which is about the annual average. 
This is owing, the chronic growlers say, to the " top- 
heavy character " of their government, which is carried 
on under a governor with a salary of $10,000; a 
chief justice, $5000; a colonial secretary, $3500, etc., 



BAHAMAS, '' ISLES OF JUNE " 7 

to the total of something like one-tenth the total reve- 
nues. 

England gives the Bahamas all this, freely and per- 
sistently, though Nassau, the island-capital, is four thou- 
sand miles distant from Downing Street, and transit occu- 
pies fourteen days. But the Bahamas have to pay for it, 
and that is why its people are sorrowful, perchance un- 
grateful. 

The small army of office-holding Britons might be 
tolerated, on the score that England has in the past sent 
hitherward her larger armies of fighting men, who have 
shed their blood and spent their Hves in acquiring and 
afterward defending her colonial possessions ; but there is 
one other infliction due to British domination not so easy 
to forgive. It is the bestowal upon all her West Indian 
islands of her archaic monetary system, with its barbarous 
nomenclature, " pounds-shillings-and-pence." Nearly all 
the islands have fractured English traditions, to the ex- 
tent of locally substituting the American decimal system, 
thus saving time present, and discounting time future as 
to prospective penalties for infractions of the unwritten 
law against unutterable thoughts ! 

There are those who declare that English rule in the 
West Indies is retardative, even retrogressive, as exem- 
plified in the Bahamas ; but when we reflect what a bul- 
wark England has provided against the ever-threatening 
flood of black barbarians, we cannot but admit that she is 
entitled to the gratitude of civilized humanity in general. 
But for British officialism in the West Indies, with its 
prestige of might behind it and visible cordons of soldiers 
around it, there are many islands which would soon re- 
semble Haiti in other and blacker features than com- 
plexion merely. 



8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

A g-lance at the historical beginnings of the Bahamas 
will throw some Hght upon the unstable and deteriorating 
quality of the inhabitants, for it is so plainly written that 
" all who run may read." When discovered, more than 
four hundred years ago, the Bahamas were sparsely in- 
habited by a weak and inoffensive people whom Co- 
lumbus, for lack of a better name, called Indians. They 
felt no need, and had great lack of clothing ; but they were 
equally devoid of defensive weapons, being armed only 
with primitive bows, arrows, bone-tipped spears, and 
stone or wooden war-clubs. Columbus found them not 
only mild and inoffensive, but, as he wrote in his diary, 
and afterward told his sovereigns, " There are no better 
people on earth, for they are gentle and know not what 
evil is ; neither killing nor stealing." That the invading 
Spaniards both killed and stole, we have ample evidence 
in the pages of their historians ; but, as they were merely 
feeling their way. at that time, through the archipelago 
toward the continent which they fondly imagined was 
ahead of them, and did not wish to begin their explora- 
tions with bloodshed, they refrained from taking the lives 
of these aborigines. 

Being diverted to other islands, where rumor had it 
there were mines of gold (of which the Bahamas were 
totally destitute) it was nearly twenty years before the 
Spaniards returned, on war and bloodshed bent. Then, 
being in need of laborers for their mines and plantations 
in Santo Domingo, they captured and deported all the In- 
dians they could find. And eventually they found nearly 
all, as it was easy to hunt out and run them down, with 
or without bloodhounds, in those islands, covered as they 
were with a sparse vegetation that afforded but few hid- 
ing'-places. Some few of the Indians escaped for a while 



BAHAMAS, " ISLES OF JUNE " 9 

by hiding in the numerous caves, where they resided for 
years, in the end miserably perishing. Evidences of their 
residence in these caves is afforded by the rehcs found 
there, such as celts, or stone spear and arrow heads, and 
their mighty war-clubs. 

I would fain lead my readers in quest of these abo- 
riginal relics, had we but the time to spare, having 
ferreted out many from their secret resting-places; but 
will content myself with stating that the best of them may 
now be found in the National Museum at Washington, 
and in the Museum of Natural History, New York. 
Suffice it to state that the Spaniards did their bloody work 
with neatness and dispatch, leaving no aboriginal alive, 
either in the Bahamas, or in any large island of the 
West Indies. A few disjecta membra only, scattered 
bones in caves and holes, and now and then crania of 
doubtful authenticity, remain to remind us of those " gen- 
tlest people on earth," and it may be said without fear of 
contradiction that no aboriginal Lucayan has been seen 
alive since the sixteenth century ended. 

The spear and arrow-heads infrequently found through- 
out the chain are called by the present natives " thunder- 
bolts," and are carefully saved and cherished as amulets 
and charms, particularly efficacious against the lightning 
stroke. These " thunderbolts," the ignorant and super- 
stitious negroes affirm, have been seen to descend from 
the skies during thunder-storms, and an old negro once 
said to me : " Massa, don' you mek no mistake ; me see dis 
a t'undahbolt drap wiv my own yeyes, sah. One time da 
t'undah done strike a tree in front ob ma own house, an' 
ma wife he say : ' I 'clar I b'leve t'undahbolt done drap 
in yandah tree ' ; an,' sho nuff , when me go to look an' 
zamine dat tree he be right in da crack ob um lightnin' ! 



lo OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Me mus' b'leve um, ef me see urn, sah." And believe it 
he did, no amount of reasoning being sufficient to con- 
vince him to the contrary. Incidentally, this incident will 
throw light upon the length of time that has elapsed since 
these celts were in use by their makers, and the prevailing 
ignorance of the present natives. 

The Spaniards, then, returned to the islands only for 
slaves and victims for their various lusts (of which they 
possessed a full allotment), and the first actual settlements 
were made by English adventurers. An English navi- 
gator, one Captain Sayle, was fortuitously preserved from 
.shipwreck by making shelter in the harbor of an island 
which, in gratitude for his deliverance, he called Provi- 
dence. As there was already another Providence, on the 
coast of North America, he later designated his island as 
New Providence. This was in or about the year 1667; 
but, although more than one hundred and seventy years 
had elapsed since the discovery of the Bahamas (during 
which period no settlements had been made in the chain), 
and more than a hundred since the last aboriginal in- 
habitant had been carried off, leaving the islands depopu- 
lated, the Spaniards bitterly resented this invasion of their 
territory. Five years later they made a descent upon 
New Providence and conveyed a gentle hint to the 
settlers that they were not wanted in that part of the 
world, by roasting their governor over an open fire, and 
destroying all the property they could not carry away. 
/ They are said to have urged, in extenuation of their 
rude behavior, that the settlers were mostly wreckers and 
pirates, anyway, which accusation was very near to the 
truth. The numerous small cays of the Bahamas, with 
the hundreds of tortuous channels and shallow water- 
ways, afforded delightful retreats for the then numerous 



BAHAMAS, "ISLES OF JUNE" n 

" gentlemen of the sea," by themselves styled buccaneers, 
but to others known as pirates. Pirates they were, at all 
events, if the old chronicles may be believed, and not only 
in Nassau, but throughout the entire chain of islands, 
north and south, indulged in every kind of debauchery 
and excess. It is difficult to tell just when they were 
finally exterminated; but the descendants of their con- 
temporaries, the wreckers, continued to exist until late 
into the last century. Indeed, there are men still living 
who make no bones of decrying the erection of light- 
houses and beacons for the mariner's guidance, saying 
that the Government has taken the bread out of honest 
men's mouths and destroyed a lucrative profession! 

The Spaniards returned again and again, at one time 
being re-infdrced by the French; but the pirates and buc- 
caneers continued to flourish, and at last became so im- 
pudent (daring even to scuttle the ships of his British 
Majesty, King George I., and force many of his unfortu- 
nate subjects to " walk the plank," that he dispatched 
that famous navigator. Captain Woodes Rogers, with 
instructions to either reduce the pirates to obedience or 
destroy their colony. Captain Woodes Rogers was the 
bold privateer who, in 1707, rescued Alexander Selkirk, 
after his four years' solitary exile on the island of Juan 
Fernandez, made this prototype of Robinson Crusoe first 
mate aboard his ship, and gave him command of one 
of his Spanish prizes. 

Captain Rogers was sent out with particular instruc- 
tions to kill, or capture alive with a view to hanging, the 
notorious John Teach, alias " Blackbeard," who had made 
Nassau his rendezvous, after having been driven from the 
Virgin Islands, and who was commodore, as he styled 
himself, of as desperate a gang of pirates as the world has 



12 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ever known. He held his councils of war beneath the 
shade of a spreading banyan tree, which is still shown in 
the suburbs of Nassau, and there planned piracies which 
ravaged not only the West Indies, but the coast of North 
America. Captain Teach derived the name of " Black- 
beard " from his long, black, and flowing whiskers, which 
(says one who had the privilege of conversing with him in 
his palmy days) he suffered to grow to an immoderate 
length, and the effect of which he was solicitous to 
heighten by twisting them up in small tails, like a Ramil- 
lies wig. When his evil passions were aroused — which 
was nearly all the time — he appeared a perfect fury. He 
always went into action with three braces of pistols 
thrust in his belt and slung over his shoulders, and with 
lighted matches under his hat, sticking out over each of 
his ears. 

In Nassau, Blackbeard was looked upon as the devil 
incarnate, and indeed he was never more flattered than 
when his resemblance to his Satanic Majesty was com- 
mented on, either by friend or foe. He delighted in ex- 
hibiting himself to his merry men as a demon, and one 
day when business was dull, over under the lee of Hog 
Island, in the harbor of Nassau, he appeared in the role of 
Devil in what he playfully called " a little hell of my own." 
It was a private performance, with himself as sole actor 
and his men as suffering spectators. He collected a great 
quantity, some say a ton, of brimstone and combustibles 
between decks of his pirate ship, and after driving his 
crew below and baftening down the hatches, he set fire to 
the mass and compelled the miserable wretches to remain 
while he enacted his conception of the devil, to the life. 
The situation finally became intolerable and the men burst 
the hatches and escaped to the deck; though Blackbeard 



BAHAMAS, " ISLES OF JUNE " 13 

was not only unaffected by the smoke and fumes, but 
seemed actually to enjoy them, like the diabolical sala- 
mander that he was. 

Captain Woodes Rogers arrived too late to capture the 
pirate, who sailed for the Carolina coast, where he shortly 
after met his merited fate at the hands of Lieutenant 
Maynard of the King's navy. Caught in Ocracoke Inlet, 
to the south of Hatteras, Blackbeard was brought to bay 
and forced to fight the brave lieutenant, who overcame 
him after a desperate contest, and cutting off his head, 
stuck it on the end of his bowsprit, and in this manner 
carried the " captain and his whiskers " into port. 

It was in the latter part of 1718 that Blackbeard met his 
untimely end; but the Bahama pirates, and following 
them the wreckers, continued to exist for long years 
thereafter. All the maritime nations having united 
against them, however, they no longer prospered, and 
were compelled to eke out a mere existence by fishing for 
conchs. As these shellfish were (and are now) very 
abundant in Bahama waters, and as the pirates and their 
descendants subsisted, in great measure, upon their flesh, 
the natives have acquired the name of " Conchs," 
by which they are universally known throughout the 
chain and in the Florida Keys. From some of these 
conchs, by the way, are obtained the beautiful " pink 
pearls," not infrequently found in the waters surrounding 
the southern islands, and which are sometimes of great 
value. 

The American Revolutionary War wrought a change in 
the complexion of the inhabitants, for it brought about an 
irruption of Tories from the Southern States, who came 
over in large numbers, bringing with them thousands of 
negro slaves. This peaceful invasion inured to the benefit 



14 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

of the islands, for the new settlers brought wealth and 
thrift ; but eventually they succumbed to the combined 
effects of insularity and climate, and became as depressed 
and poverty-stricken as the original inhabitants. 

Another result of the war was the capture of New 
Providence by an American force under Commodore 
Hopkins, who soon after abandoned the island as unten- 
able. It was retaken by the Spaniards, and held during the 
war ; but was again captured by Americans, sailing from 
Saint Augustine, the invading force consisting of about 
fifty volunteers -commanded by a gallant Carolinian named 
Devaux. The island was then well fortified, and more- 
over was occupied by more than seven hundred Span- 
iards, yet the forts were taken almost without bloodshed, 
owing to the strategy and audacity of the young Caro- 
linian, who deceived the garrisons by sending the boats 
from his brigantines to shore loaded down with soldiers, 
who, instead of landing, lay down and were rowed back 
to the vessels, from which they were again taken to land. 
This process, and a great hubbub, deceived the Spaniards 
into the belief that a large force was about to attack them, 
and when Colonel Devaux appeared at the fortress gate, 
they incontinently surrendered. They were greatly cha- 
grined, of course, when they learned the actual number of 
their captors ; but that was not until after their arms had 
been given up and they were held as prisoners of war. 
The Spaniards were transported ; but the island remained 
in American hands for a short time only, reverting to 
Great Britain after the treaty of peace was signed and 
ratified. B^or the past hundred years and more, the his- 
tory of the Bahamas has been uneventful, except for a 
brief period during the Civil War in the United States, 
when Nassau became the headquarters of blockade- 




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BAHAMAS, "ISLES OF JUNE" 15 

runners, and for a while reveled in riches ; which, how- 
ever, were as quickly dissipated as they were acquired. 

Just when and by whom the Bahama climate was dis- 
covered, is not a matter of record ; but it was probably by 
Columbus, who wrote in his journal of the deliciously soft 
and heavenly airs ; and he arrived at the very worst sea- 
son for experiencing its blandest possibilities. The tem- 
perature averages about seventy-five degrees between 
October and May, and eighty or eighty-five between May 
and October, and the heat is always tempered by refresh- 
ing breezes. Situated as it is, just beneath the northern 
Tropic, Nassau possesses an ideal winter climate — in the 
shade ; but the glare of the ever-shining sun is something 
terrific. As in the Bermudas, the white rock and the 
" water-colored " houses reflect the rays of the sun with 
an unmitigated intensity. But the houses, all, are well 
provided with jalousied verandas, which admit the salt 
sea-breezes, excluding the heat and light ; and then, 
there are trees, here and there, chiefly of the tropical 
variety, such as palms, cocoa and royal, silk-cottons and 
banyans or American figs. At least one tree in Nassau is 
entitled to rank among the vegetable wonders of the 
world, and that is the gigantic silk-cotton (Bomba.v 
ceiba)^ which spreads its broad limbs and buttressed trunk 
over vast space in the court-house square. Another is 
the famous '' banyan," already mentioned as once afford- 
ing shelter for the pirates when they held their smoke- 
talks. 

Nassau, on the whole, is an interesting town, filled with 
cultured people occupying comfortable and attractive 
homes, and as the island-capital, is the metropolis of the 
Bahamas. Man and Nature have combined to make it 
available and desirable for winter tourists, its situation 



i6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

being unexceptionable, and its hotels and boarding-house 
irreproachable. It has boasted for many years a large 
and well-conducted hotel in the " Royal Victoria " ; but 
even this has been surpassed by the new and perfectly 
appointed " Colonial," both under American manage- 
ment, and every winter visited by delighted thousands 
from the United States. They share, with the governor's 
mansion; the honor of being the largest structures in the 
Bahamas, and occupy the most advantageous sites for 
recreation and sight-seeing. 

With the exception of Havana, Nassau is the nearest 
to the United States of any island-city in foreign waters, 
for it is only 175 miles, and an over-night run from Miami 
in Florida, with which and the " xA.merican Riviera " there 
is, in the winter season, tri-weekly communication, 
affording rail connection with every town and city in the 
United States and Canada. Then there is the all-sea 
route between Nassau and New York, traversed by the 
splendid steamers of the " Ward Line," which has been 
established and well known for many years. 

New Providence is comparable to the Bermudas in its 
aggregate of similar attractions, and has the further ad- 
vantage of being much nearer the Equator, the northern 
Tropic running about two degrees south of the island. 
Thus a voyage through tropical waters may be com- 
menced at Nassau, if desired, and continued more than a 
thousand miles southward as far as Trinidad, coast of 
South America, with some island or other in sight every 
day, and a good -prospect of making harbor every night, 
depending upon the means of conveyance, preferably a 
good steam yacht. While there are many small (and 
very filthy) vessels at Nassau which could be chartered 
for a run through the archipelago, and while there is a 



BAHAMAS, "ISLES OF JUNE" 17 

semi-occasional mail-boat, manned and officered by 
negroes, which plies between New Providence and 
Inagua, British energy and revenues have not yet been 
equal to establishing steam communication between the 
different islands of the colony. 

After the sights of Nassau have all been disposed of, 
after old Fort Montague and Fort Charlotte have been 
visited and admired; Fort Fincastle (which resembles a 
stranded stone steamboat more than anything else on 
earth) and the deep quarry-cut called the " Queen's Stair- 
case " have been inspected ; the " Lake of Fire " and 
■" Sea Gardens " wondered at ; the little darkeys who dive 
for coins praised and petted ; then the visitor is likely to 
settle down to a prolonged rest, content merely to inhale 
the delicious air, and gaze languidly upon the diverting 
scenes outspread from the hotel verandas. There are 
miles of splendid roads in Nassau, roads hard as iron and 
smooth as palace floors, because, like the so-called soil of 
the Bahamas, they are composed of lime and coral rock. 
In this connection it may be mentioned that though the 
Bahamas offer alluring prospects to the agriculturist, 
inasmuch as almost anything on earth may be raised there, 
and especially all fruits and vegetables of the tropics, yet 
the problem ever confronting him will be how to get the 
various seed and plants into the soil. The surface of an 
ordinary farm when cleared for planting looks, " for all 
the world," very much like the asotea, or flat roof-top, of 
an Oriental house, and has about as many cracks and 
crevices in it for the insertion of seed. A certain Ameri- 
can of waggish proclivities — and this was in the long, 
long ago — suggested that probably the Bahama farmer 
prepared his " soil " with dynamite and injected the seed 
by means of a shot-gun ; but, however it is done, very little 



1 8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

results from tlie process. Always excepting, of course, 
the exotic hemp and indigenous pineapple, which flourish 
exceedingly, the latter growing to be the largest and the 
most delicious fruit of its kind in the known world. The 
pine was found here by the explorers, by the natives called 
anana, and was one of the many desirable gifts of the Ba- 
hamas to civilization. Another was tobacco, another 
maize or Indian corn (though the first fields were found 
in Cuba), and still another, cascarilla, C rot on clcutheria, 
which derives its specific name from the island of Eleu- 
thera, where, it is possible, Columbus may have, made his 
first landfall in the New World. 

What is generally considered as the first landfall and 
landing-place of Columbus, in 1492, has been variously 
located, the most of the alleged authorities recommending 
Watling's Island, which is midway the chain and just a 
thousand miles south of New York. For many years, it 
was thought to be on Cat Island, which was also called 
San Salvador, the name Columbus gave to the first island 
upon which he landed. I myself have been through the 
chain from north to south, and from south to north, look- 
ing for the landing-place of Columbus, and for remains 
of the Indians he was the indirect means of exterminat- 
ing; but all I can say is, that it was probably either on 
Watling's Island or Eleuthera, with much in favor 
of the latter island, which may possibly be the original 
Guanahani of the natives, and the San Salvador of 
Columbus. 

At least one other gift of Guanahani to the civiHzed 
world should be mentioned, and this is the hammock, for 
it was in this aboriginal swinging bed that Columbus 
found the Indians indulging in their midday siesta. 
Many of the native fruits and vegetables, such as sweet! 




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BAHAMAS, "ISLES OF JUNE" 19 

and sour sops, avocado pears, sapodillas, acajous, cassava, 
etc., were cultivated by the Indians. All the members of 
the citrus family, probably the bananas, plantains, cocoa- 
nuts, guavas, and pomegranates, were introduced by the 
Spaniards, but are here perfectly at home and at their 
best. 

There were no large quadrupeds indigenous to the Ba- 
hamas, the largest four-footed creature being the iguana, 
which is still abundant; and until recently it was thought 
that the " utia," a small animal the Indians were very 
fond of, had been exterminated. A few years ago, how- 
ever, numerous specimens of this strange quadruped, 
which somewhat resembles a woodchuck, were found ex- 
isting on the Plana Cays, near Acklin Island. The de- 
lighted discoverer at once proceeded to shoot and " stomp 
on " all the innocent little iitias he could find, afterward 
removing their skins, which he took to a museum; for 
which act of refined barbarity he was rewarded by having 
his cognomen added, as a specific appellation, to the gen- 
eric designation, Capromys. The birds of the Bahamas, 
also, have been decimated through the indiscriminate 
slaughter by collectors, very few now remaining of the 
once numerous humming birds, mocking birds, the 
bright-plumaged parrots and fiamingos. Of the last two 
species, the parrots are still found in flocks in Acklin 
Island, and the flamingos in Andros, where they breed. 

The attractions of the Bahamas are mostly marine, or 
submarine, the beautiful blue sea containing many 
piscatorial wonders. Its beauty-tints are derived from, 
and are as various as, the sky that bends above it, and its 
pellucid depths are owing to the coral rock beneath. It 
is assumed that every visitor to Nassau will hire a glass- 
bottomed boat and be rowed across the bay to the region 



20 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

of the sea-gardens, where only an adequate conception can 
be obtained of the beauties beneath the sea. On a dark 
night, and when a Hght breeze ruffles the surface of the 
water, make your way out to the" Lake of Fire," the 
hmiinous lake at Waterloo, not far from town, where a 
boat and an obliging negro are always in waiting, ready 
to evoke such phosphorescent effects as are a wonder to 
behold. " Marine curiosities," such as turtle shells, 
corals, sea-fans, sponges, conchs, pink pearls, etc., are 
always on sale in the little shops by the bay-side, and may 
be obtained in any quantity desired. 

While the aggregate land area of the Bahamas is nearly 
6000 square miles, there are few islands of great size, and 
all these are composed of the same calcareous rock, sup- 
porting a scanty vegetation with native trees such as the 
Piniis Bahaincnsis of New Providence, and valuable cabi- 
net woods like mahogany, lignum vitse, mastic, etc., in the 
southern islands. There are few elevations, the greatest 
being hardly more than two hundred feet. Beginning at 
the north, near the Florida coast, we have the Great and 
Little Abaco, the former famous for its perforated cliff 
known as the " Hole in the Wall," and containing a large 
population mainly descended from the American Tories. 
Southwest of this group lie the Bimini Cays, where tradi- 
tion located De Leon's Fountain of Youth. 

Harbor Island was the rendezvous of the old-time buc- 
caneers, descendants of whom still reside there, in 
patriarchal fashion. New Providence we have already 
seen ; but southwest of this island is Andros, the largest 
and least known of the Bahamas. Here, only, in thef 
chain are to be found running streams, all the other 
islands deriving their water from the clouds ; large forests 
of valuable woods, and the breeding-places of flamingos, 



BAHAMAS, "ISLES OF JUNE" 21 

herons, egrets, and other rare and beautiful birds ; while 
the natives retain, or rather have reverted to, the habits 
of their African and aboriginal ancestors, and exist 
mainly in a semi-savage state. 

At the head of the reef-inclosed Exuma Sound we find, 
on the east^ famed Eleuthera, with its wonderful perfor- 
ated cliff known as the " Glass Windows," and south of 
it Cat Island, long known as San Salvador, famous for its 
pineapples and historic " Columbus Point." Eastwardly 
from Cat Island lies Watling's, already alluded to as a 
rival for the honor of being considered the landfall of 
Columbus ; south of which are Rum Cay, Long, Crooked, 
Fortune, and Acklin islands, all of these probably visited 
and named by Columbus, in 1492. 

Politically, the Bahamas end with the Inaguas, great 
and little, which lie about midway between Cuba and the 
southernmost islands, the Caicos and Grand Turk's. 
These last-named, though geographically pertaining to 
the Bahamas, are under the governmental jurisdiction of 
Jamaica, from which they are distant about 450 miles. 
They were made a dependency of Jamaica in 1848, as their 
inhabitants found it more convenient to commimicate with 
that island than with New Providence and the Bahama 
capital. Very few of them ever had occasion to visit 
Nassau, except the people's representatives in council, and 
these complained that while they could make the vo3'age 
up in a few days, they could not get back in as many 
weeks, owing to the opposition of the prevailing trade 
winds. 

All the southern islands are noted for their " salt-pans," 
from which are raked enormous quantities of salt derived 
from the sea- water. While the northern islands are at 
the present time the most populous (New Providence 



22 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

alone containing about one- fourth the total population), 
the aboriginal inhabitants seem to have been confined to 
the southern half of the chain, and were probably 
Arawaks, working their way northerly toward Florida 
from the West Indies and South America. 

The oft-repeated statement in the Bahamas that the old 
wrecker instinct still survives obtained a curious con- 
firmation, in the winter of 1903-04, at the trial of a band 
of blacks from Rum Cay, charged with plundering and 
ill-treating the occupants of a yacht which had foundered 
on their shores. While this yacht was still struggling to 
make port the savage wreckers boarded her and began 
the pillage, which was nearly accomplished by the time 
she went to pieces. Their treatment of the owners was 
so barbarous that one of them died in consequence (it 
was charged by his son) ; but, as he did not appear at 
court to press charges against them when arraigned for 
trial, they were allowed to go free. 

On New Year's Day, 1904, the bark " Primus " went 
ashore near the Hole-in-the-Wall, Island of Abaco, while 
the natives were at church. The parson lost no time in 
dismissing the congregation, and all hastened at once to 
the shore, and aboard their boats, in order to enter a 
claim for what valuables they could discover on the 
wreck. A flotilla containing some three hundred negroes 
soon surrounded the " Primus," which they were kept 
from boarding only by a ruse of her captain, who, with 
a handful of small coins, kept the whole three hundred 
diving for them, on one side the ship, while his crew hur- 
ried ashore with the valuable nautical instruments, which 
they buried in a place of safety. 

"To the wreckers belong the spoils," is a maxim that 
is believed in and lived up to, if not universally pro- 
claimed, throughout the Bahamas. 



II 

HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 

Cuba first circumnavigated — Its tortuous coast-line — Its hun- 
dred harbors — Features of the coast — Cortes, De Soto, 
Drake, and other worthies — Capture of Havana by the 
British — Memorials of many Spanish victims — The Morro 
and the " Maine " — Matanzas, Cardenas, Nuevitas, and 
Gibara — Vita, Naranjo, Sama, Banes, Tanamo, Baracoa 
■ — Region of big sugar estates — Trees of the tropical forest 
in Cuba — Where capital is not timid — Nipe Bay and its 
bright prospects — Sir William Van Home's great schemes 

— The finest coast country of Cuba — Hunting, fishing, and 
exploring — Best region to settle in — Cape Maisi and Faro 
Concha — Guantanamo and Escondido — Our new naval 
station — Where the American invasion began — Coffee 
and Cacao country — Daiquiri, where Shafter landed troops 

— Las Guasimas, San Juan, and El Caney — The Morro 
twenty years ago — Still intact — Santiago from the bay — 
Where Cervera's squadron lay — Cayo Smith and the " Mer- 
rimac " — President Roosevelt at San Juan — Reminders of 
the Rough Riders — An improved Santiago — The Virgin and 
Mines of Cobre — Down the South Coast — Manzanillo, Pico 
Turquino, Bayanio, Trinidad, and Cienfuegos — Batabano and 
the graves of Spanish galleons. 

A LTHOUGH Christopher Cokimbus discovered 
/_\ several of Cuba's finest harbors in 1492, 
X m Ocampo circumnavigated the island in 1508, 
and Velasquez began its colonization in 151 1, not 
more than half a dozen ports were established by the 
Spaniards during the first century of their occupation. 
And to-day, more than four hundred years after the dis- 

23 



24 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

covery of Cuba, there exist in that island harbors as good 
as the best, with respect to natural advantages, which yet 
await development in almost uninvaded seclusion. 

With its two thousand miles of tortuous coast-line, 
Cuba possesses nearly a hundred harbors, large and small, 
fifty of which are ports of entry, and the remainder little 
known. Not all, perhaps, are historic in the larger sense, 
but some of them are, most certainly, and these we will 
visit. Beginning in the western province of Pinar del 
.Rio, right in the tail of the " centipede " (which Cuba has 
been said to resemble in general outline) is the harbor of 
Bahia Honda, as deep as its Spanish name implies, and a 
favorite resort of the Cuban insurgents when in need of 
supplies. I\Iany can recall when Maceo made his famous 
break through trochas and Spanish lines across the island, 
in 1896, ostensibly in mere bravado of the Dons; but in 
reality to obtain the sinews of war brought to this harbor, 
and others near, by American filibusteros. Bahia Honda 
is pouch- or pocket-shaped, as also are most of the harbors 
of the north coast, notably those in Pinar del Rio, and all 
have some distinguishing feature in the contiguous 
country, making them " easy marks " for the mariner. 

For example, fifteen miles east of Bahia Honda is 
another little harbor dominated by the " Pan de Cabafias," 
or Sugar-Loaf Hill, and twelve miles easterly again is the 
" Pan de Mariel," another table-topped elevation, or 
mesa, distinguishing the entrance of the natural port 
of that name, where at present a further distinctive mark 
is the prow of a Spanish cruiser, "Alfonso XII," sunk 
by the Americans during the war, sticking straight up 
into the air. It was at Mariel, by the way, that some 
unsophisticated Spaniards fired at the battle-ship " New 
York " with their Mausers ; but they did it only once. 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 25 

The " Pan de Guayaibon," fifteen miles south of 
Havana, warns sailors of their approach to this famous 
harbor, which, together with that of Santiago, is the best 
known of Cuba's ports. 

Is it historic? If not, then there is no harbor with a 
history in America, for it was first found by Ocampo in 
1508, first taken possession of, as a " carecning-place," 
within a few years thereafter, and before it was fairly 
under way as a port stout Cortes sailed from it on his 
adventurous voyage to Mexico, in 15 19. The site where 
first religious exercises were held here is to-day indicated 
by a chapel, built near the scion of the original silk-cotton 
tree beneath which services were performed. Nine years 
later Pamphilo de Narvaez sailed out of Havana harbor 
for Florida, whither he was followed in 1539 by Ferdi- 
nand de Soto, neither of whom ever returned in the 
flesh. 

Between these two events Havana was sacked by buc- 
caneers and captured by French privateers, who restored 
the city to its owners, as did the Dutch pirates who took 
it a century later, after appropriating the wealth of the 
populace. Twice it was taken, twice ransomed and re- 
covered ; for the Spaniards valued city and port com- 
bined more than any other in the West Indies, and when 
the English, assisted by Colonial troops from New York 
and New England, wrested Havana from them, in 1762, 
they lost no time in offering Florida in exchange. For, 
they had not squeezed that Havana orange dry, though 
they had murdered the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
island, long before, had imported Africans to take their 
places, and raised a mongrel people who were v.^orking 
for them like a colony of ants. 

It was in the second quarter of the sixteenth century 



26 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

that the King of Spain sent over an Italian engineer to 
plan fortifications for Havana, the result of whose work 
appears in Morro Castle and the Bateria de la Punta, on 
the opposite side of the harbor-mouth. They were well 
planned, and to-day are the most picturesque features of 
Havana's approaches. Before they were finished, in the 
year 1585, the city was threatened by that masterful sea- 
rover, Sir Francis Drake, and the panic-stricken Span- 
iards hurried matters so that forty years later they were 
nearly completed. And they were well-constructed, more 
than three hundred years having passed over them with- 
out inflicting great injury. 

A tablet in the seaward-facing wall of the Castle 
informs one of the event of 1762, when the British and 
Colonials breached the fortification and carried the Morro 
by assault. The sequel of this afifair was the construction 
of the vast range of fortifications banked against the side- 
hill opposite Havana, the Cabafias, about 5700 feet in 
length and 900 in breadth — that labyrinth of masonry, 
with its numerous dungeons in which many of Spain's 
enemies were done to death. For a brief period the Star- 
Spangled Banner floated above the Cabanas fortifications, 
and they were cleansed of their impurities. It was low- 
ered on the fourth of February, 1904, and replaced by 
the flag of the Cuban Republic. Like the Morro, Cabanas 
is a monument to Spanish cruelties, and down in the 
" Fosse of the Laurel Trees " you may find a beautiful 
bronze tablet affixed (in 1904) against the wall it) front 
of which innocent Cubans were stood up to be shot. 

The Spaniards early acquired the "shooting habit," 
and seem to have been unhappy when they could find no 
victims. Their places of execution are pointed out all 
over the island, and are almost as numerous as the bronze 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 27 

tablets set np by Governor Wood in commemoration of 
his various doings during the era of reform. 

Since the war ended, the Cubans have nearly impover- 
ished themselves erecting marble memorials and monu- 
ments of other sort, to their brothers slain by Spaniards 
in cold blood, and it has been suggested that it would be 
but an act of justice — at least of poetic justice — to compel 
the wealthy Spanish residents of Cuba, who are absorbing 
to themselves the island's resources, to contribute toward 
this end ! 

Not Cubans alone have been sacrificed by the Spaniards 
in their fury, as we may be reminded at the Cabanas, for 
over across the harbor stands star-shaped Castle Atares, 
within the walls of which young Crittenden and fifty 
companions were shot to death, among the first " fili- 
busters " to lose their lives in the cause of Cuban liberty. 

That was fifty years ago; but there are more recent 
victims yet of Spanish perfidy and cruelty, and they lie 
in the mud of the harbor beneath yonder misshapen hulk, 
between Cabafias and Atares. Have you forgotten the 
" Maine " ? The Spaniards have not, and somewhere in 
existence yet, it is said, are the wretches who blew 
up that gallant ship and sacrificed the lives of two hun- 
dred and sixty American sailors! They still live, having 
been shielded by persons high in authority — it is rumored 
in Havana; but they no longer reside in Cuba, having 
gone home to the " mother country." 

The great battle-ship which the Spaniards sank at her 
moorings is slowly settling into the mud of the harbor, 
and it will be well when the last vestige of the " Maine " 
shall have disappeared, for the sight of her revives too 
many irreconcilable memories, especially in view of the 
fact that the Spaniards in Cuba are flaunting too freely 



28 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the red-and-yellow flag of ancient tyranny. The 
" Maine " massacre was the last wholesale execution 
effected by the Spaniards, for swiftly following after 
came the avengements of the war, with the sinking of 
Cervera's fleet off Santiago, when we paid off the old 
score with large interest added. 

The flight and destruction of the Spanish fleet, on the 
third of July, 1898, was the last great action in the hun- 
dred-days' war with Spain, of which the first (slight in 
' itself) was the bombardment of Matanzas by Admiral 
Sampson, April 27th, when, according to the Captain- 
General of Cuba, only a mule was killed. It was a Span- 
ish mule, take notice, and sometimes that species walks 
on legs less than four in number ; and when this one was 
buried, it was not lying on its side, after the manner of 
quadrupeds when defunct, but with its " toes turned up to 
the daisies ! " 

Unlike the harbor of Havana, which is completely 
land-locked and has a depth in its center of from 50 to 60 
feet, that of Matanzas is open and shallow ; moreover, 
save for the affair of the mule, it is hardly entitled to be 
called historic ; so we will hasten on to another, which like- 
wise derives its importance from an incident of the 
Spanish-American war. This is the harbor of Cardenas, 
which, however, is no harbor at all, large ships being com- 
pelled to anchor fifteen miles from the town. In this 
roadstead occurred that brief though brilliant action of 
May II, 1898, when Ensign Bagley and four sailors were 
killed, the first American victims of the war — after thos'^. 
of the " Maine " ; though several sailors were wounded 
that same day, while grappling for cables off Cienfuegos. 

The north-central coast of Cuba has no good harbor 
for large vessels^none comparable with that of Havana, 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 29 

between which and Nuevitas a distance of several hun- 
dred miles intervenes. This last may be termed historic, 
as having once been the seat of Puerto Principe, which 
was removed inland, on account of repeated attacks and 
depredations by pirates. It is also claimed by some that 
its large though somewhat shallow harbor, which is 
reached through a sea-river six miles long, was first vis- 
ited by Columbus when, in October, 1492, he landed in 
Cuba. In support of this claim it is pointed out that 
Nuevitas is still celebrated for its fine tarpon fishing, 
and sponges, as in the time of Columbus ; but again, the 
aspect of hill and mountain is not that given by the cele- 
brated Navigator in his journal. A harbor which quite 
answers to his descriptions, as to its shape and setting, 
is that of Gibara, 80 or 90 miles to the southeast, for 
inland from it lie the four great hills with table-tops which 
he descried, rising conspicuously above the plains. 

As we follow the trend of the coast southeasterly we 
are, of course, constantly dropping equator-ward in lati- 
tude, and at and near Gibara are three degrees south of 
Havana and only one degree north of Santiago, on the 
southern coast. Here and beyond, pursuing our course 
toward Cape Maisi, we find the harbors pouch-shaped, 
and profound in depth, as at Havana and westerly, but 
sheltered from the heavy seas of open ocean by protecting 
coral reefs with narrow entrances. Of this character 
are Vita, Naranjo, diminutive Sama, Banes, Tanamo, 
Baracoa, and several others not yet ports of entry. 

One of the most charming of these deep-water ports 
is that of Naranjo, back of which lies the big sugar estate 
of Santa Lucia, with its hundred thousand acres of fertile 
soil. At Naranjo steamers can go right up to the shore 
and load or discharge cargo; a pretty stream comes in 



30 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

from a tropical wilderness, a great hill from which en- 
trancing views may be obtained rises not far away ; and 
this diversity of surface, together with the rich soil and 
luxuriant vegetation, the healthful climate, and unexam- 
pled situation as respects communication with the outside 
world, augur well for the future of " Port Orange," 
should it ever be opened for colonization. 

This port was entered by Columbus on his famous 
voyage in 1492. and either this or another like it inspired 
him to write to his sovereigns : " This is the most beau- 
tiful island eyes ever beheld, full of excellent ports and 
profound rivers. . . . One could live here forever ! " 

Now and again majestic waterfalls may be seen, flash- 
ing white and thundering loudly behind a screen of trop- 
ical vines and trees hung with air-plants, and there are 
miles of forest along shore beyond, filled with precious 
woods : fragrant cedar, satin-wood, and mahogany. 
Seventy-two varieties of tropical trees valuable for their 
uses in the arts and industries are enumerated as being 
found in the forests of Cuba, the greater bodies of which 
overspread portions of Santiago province, along the north 
shore of which we are voyaging. 

In this region, adjacent to the coast, are not only some 
of the finest sugar estates in Cuba, but there is one 
ingenio the largest in the world ; for the soil of this 
section is of almost inexhaustible fertility, and the 
numerous deep-water harbors opening northward, lo New 
York and a market, afford the greatest facilities for 
profitable operations. No fertilizers are used, for the 
extent of virgin soil is such that when, after ten or fifteen 
years in cane, a tract shows signs of exhaustion, it is 
practically abandoned and another area divested of its 
forest covering, plowed, and planted. 




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'^ 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 31 

The harbors mentioned as lying to the southeast of 
Gibara are gems in their way, most of them adapted for 
winter resorts, but particularly for small-fruit colonies. 
There is still another, in fact, there are several others, 
but one in particular, which has an expanse of water 
between its curving shores sufficient to float a navy, and 
this is Nipe, which until within a comparatively recent 
period existed in seclusion broken only by the visits 
of fishermen and filibusters. There is no bay like it in 
Cuba, or, perhaps, on either coast of the United States, 
for its situation, within 21 degrees of the Equator, yet 
only four days from New York and our chief Atlantic 
cities, is unsurpassed. Like its sister ports and harbors 
mentioned, it is three degrees further into the tropics than 
Havana, and yet, in point of time and steaming, one day 
nearer the northern cities of the Eastern United States ; 
and this amounts to much, in the raising of fruits for 
northern market, and the prices one may get for them. 

Capital is timid, according to the common saying ; but 
capital has shown no great amount of timidity in " plank- 
ing down " its millions on the north coast, as shown by 
the vast ingenios, the yet vaster areas being brought into 
banana cultivation, and finally in the extension of the 
Cuba railway from Alto Cedro, on the main line, to 
Manopilon on Nipe Bay, where a six-mile frontage has 
been acquired for a future city, with fifty thousand acres 
contiguous, as the nucleus of a great winter resort, some- 
time to rival Palm Beach and Nassau. 

That renowned magician. Sir William Van Home, has 
waved his wand over Cuba, and wherever it touched, at 
Havana, at Camagiiey, at Nipe and at Santiago, he has 
planned to build a great hotel. Each hotel will have 
attractions peculiarly its own, and as tlie four will be 



32 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

practically connected by Sir William's railway, the route 
of the future tourist to Cuba may be vastly more varied 
and interesting" than by any of the lines hitherto ex- 
isting. 

While Nipe was known to pirates, buccaneers, and 
wreckers, who made it their rendezvous in succession, it 
was either unknown, or unvisited, except, by them, 
during long centuries, so few important events have 
transpired here. An occurrence which rises to the dignity 
of an event, in latter years, was the visit paid Nipe by four 
war-ships of the American squadron shortly after the 
naval fight at Santiago. Lying inside, in fancied security, 
protected by submarine mines in the channel, was the 
Spanish gunboat " Don Jorge Juan," of near a thousand 
tons. Her commander did not believe the Yankees would 
venture over the mine-planted channel through the reefs ; 
but, since Dewey proved the comparative harmlessness of 
Spanish explosives beneath the sea, our gallant tars mind 
them no longer ; so the " Don Jorge Juan " was soon sent 
to keep them company. 

There has long been a Spanish line of coastal steamers 
around the island, which touch in at most of the ports, 
but it is by no means up to the standard set by the Amer- 
ican ships, and had better be avoided. Santiago and 
Havana have been for years served by the old Ward 
Line; but the only American service reaching the im- 
portant ports of the north coast, which, owing to their 
more advantageous situation in general are going to be 
the ports of the future, is the Munson Line, which in- 
cludes them all between Matanzas and Baracoa, a dis- 
tance of some six hundred miles. Its Mobile-Havana 
line gives a short and direct route through the Gulf of 
Mexico, only three days in duration, while its New York 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 33 

steamers consume more time en voyage, but take one to 
parts of the island less visited, but better worth the 
while. 

Any route to Cuba is increasingly attractive as one 
runs southward in the winter time ; but there is none that 
combines so. many attractions as that covered by the 
schedule of the Munson Line, direct from New York to 
Matanzas, thence, along the tropic-seeking stretch of 
coast, to quaint and ancient Baracoa. There is no 
round-trip within my experience that offers such variety 
of scene and varying attractions — and I have taken more 
than one in the course of my existence. 

Two or three days are spent in each port, where the 
launches of the steamer are placed freely at the passen- 
gers' disposal, and while the steamer is discharging her 
cargo for the Cuban market, or taking in sugar, fruits, 
and bananas for the North, her happy guests are fishing 
in the harbors, exploring the creeks for curlews, wild 
ducks, egrets, and alligators ; shell-hunting on the beaches, 
sponge-fishing on the coral reefs, picnicking generally, 
to their hearts' content. 

There is hunting to be had, all along the coast, when 
one knows where to look for it, and if alligators are 
desired, try the beautiful Mayari River, which empties 
into Nipe Bay; if deer, wild hogs, and boa constictors, 
essay the forest country bordering that bay and, in fact, 
extending right across to Santiago. If adventure pure 
and simple, get the ship's commander to have you put 
ashore at the mouth of the Mayari, where, up stream a 
little, there is one of the quaintest towns in Cuba, 
embowered in groves of fruit trees, and within hail of 
the wilderness that fills the valleys and spreads out over 
the mountains between Nipe and Baracoa. 



34 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Oh, it is a fascinating country, that containing the 
sierras de Cristal, the Cuchillas de Toa, and the far- 
famed Yunque that o'er-tops the peerless port of Baracoa. 
Here, in this southeastern end of Cuba comprised in the 
eastern half of Santiago Province, all the unique vegetal 
productions of Cuba are concentrated ; and, " by the same 
token," this region was once the home of aboriginal 
Indians who were drawn hither by the unexampled dis- 
play of Nature's wealth. 

Within this district, which closely approximates to 
the territory given up by the Spaniards at the surrender 
of Santiago, in July, 1898, are to be found, if anywhere 
in Cuba, the last vestiges of the aboriginal people, the 
Cuban Indians. In a story I once wrote, entitled " Under 
the Cuban Flag," finding it necessary to the proper 
working of the plot for an Indian, or Indians, to be in 
it, I " discovered " a tribe residing near the Sierra de 
Cristal, around the headwaters of the various streams 
that flow hence to either coast. And, if they are not 
there, they ought to be, and I am disappointed to learn 
that some American scientists have visited the outskirts 
of this region without finding any trace of a pure-blooded 
Indian. 

Here, right here, is an opportunity for some young 
and able explorer to make his reputation. Let him go 
ashore from a Munson-Line steamer at Baracoa, 
Tamano, or Nipe, well equipped for camping-out, with a 
Cuban guide to show him the way, and a Cuban horse 
to carry him, and stay in the region at least a month — 
though all winter would be better. My word for it, 
he would find enough to reward an outlay ten times the 
cost of this venture — assuming he craves adventure and 
loves Nature; and incidentally, he might find a location 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 35 

for a future home where all the charms of Eden — includ- 
ing even a serpent — could be combined. 

But it is difficult to lure the passengers aboard a Mun- 
son-Liner away from the " flesh-pots," sad to say. Sev- 
eral of my companions on the voyage, after a few days in 
Havana, returned to ship with such relief as only the way- 
worn traveler feels on reaching home. And there they 
stayed, while I was going about the island, suffering all 
sorts of things in my desire to acquire accurate informa- 
tion and photographs " on the spot." When at last I met 
them again on board, (myself being worn down with 
hard fare and hard beds, and ill from a drink 
of " raw, unadulterated water " taken in a moment 
of forgetfulness), they appeared as fresh as when they 
started. The worst of it was, they were not at all 
ashamed of their long period of idleness on board, for 
they declared that they had to imbibe some sort of 
information, going about as they did from port to port, 
visiting sugar estates and banana plantations, entering 
little harbors by moonlight and tying up right at the 
wharves ; riding into the country while the steamer 
loaded up, boating and bathing in bays with sandy 
beaches. 

The voyage along the north coast ends at Baracoa, 
a circular, land-locked harbor guarded by Yunque or 
Anvil Hill, flat-topped, steep-sided, and near two thousand 
feet in height. Baracoa is the site of Cuba's first white 
settlement, 151 1, and the castle is pointed out which 
was built, tradition says, by Velasquez, or Don Diego 
Columbus — who was the first " Diego " of importance 
in America, let it be noted in passing. 

Cape Maisi, where the " Faro Concha " stands — the 
lone lighthouse on the extreme eastern tip of Cuba — 



36 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

is exactly due south from New York, This, of course, 
does not add to its importance, for Maisi was discovered 
more than a hundred years before Manhattan had a 
name bestowed upon it by the lumbering Dutchmen who 
followed after the Spaniards to America, But, this fact 
is mentioned, peradventure one gets lost he may be 
enabled to obtain his bearings : due south from New York, 
and due east of Guantanamo — from the former about 
1500 miles, and from the latter perhaps one hundred. 

The south coast is vastly different from the north, 
bare — and would be bleak if it were further from the 
Equator — rising in great terraces and indented with few 
harbors — but those few of great importance. 

Guantanamo comes first in voyaging from Maysi 
westward, and as it was probably discovered first by the 
Spaniards, there will be no harm in mentioning it before 
Santiago, which has the harbor par excellence of the 
entire south coast. It lies about 40 miles east of San- 
tiago, and comes into history as the scene of a foolish 
attempt to take that city by the English, in 1741, on 
which occasion Lawrence Washington, brother of 
George, assisted to the best of his abilities, being with 
his much beloved Admiral Vernon, after whom he named 
the estate on the Potomac which at his death he left 
to the so-called Father of his Country. 

With a base forty miles from their objective, the 
British had small chance of taking Santiago, and soon 
gave it up, sailing away and leaving Guantanamo to the 
solitude in which they found it. 

As Guantanamo is probably better known than any 
other port on this coast, after Santiago, since it played 
such an important part as a naval base in Admiral 
Sampson's operations against the Morro, we will not 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 37 

linger here, save to note that its great bay rivals that of 
Nipe on the north coast in extent and situation, being 
from half a mile to four miles wide and ten long, with 
harbors within a harbor, as Nipe also has. 

We cannot forget that the American invasion of Cuba 
began here, one day in June, '98, with the landing of 
600 marines, who made the Spaniards on the sandhills 
" walk Spanish " until they could walk no longer, when 
they ran. The Yankees then cut off their water supply 
by filling up the only well, and as there was not another 
within twelve miles, that settled the matter for the " Jack 
Spaniards," who had to drink their vino " without." 

In the " good old times " of buccaneers and pirate 
crews Guantanamo served as a retreat for cut-throats 
and sea-rovers, who also lurked in the secluded nooks of 
another natural port not far distant called Escondido, or 
the Hidden Harbor, where the hill on which they had 
their lookout is still remembered. Since our acquisition 
of Guantanamo as a naval station, many a luckless 
marine has wished with all his heart that it was still 
escondido, and had never been discovered, for it is one 
of the most lonesome places in the world. The town of 
Guantanamo lies more than twelve miles distant from 
Caimanera, near the harbor entrance, and whenever poor 
"Jack" desires to go on a spree he has first to traverse 
a broad expanse of dismal salt flats, .which aggravates 
his thirst to such an extent that it seems sometimes 
utterly beyond allay, and the " benders " that result are 
the most terrific on record. 

Two small steamers run between Santiago and the 
bay, whenever their owners feel disposed to let them, 
and two railroads are in process of construction which 
will soon connect with the " Cuba " system at Maya, or 



:vS OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

^Nloron, passings through a region rich in minerals, timber, 
and coffee. The home of the famous Cuban coft'ee is 
among the beautiful hills behind Guantanamo, and this 
is the section in which the colonist should settle who 
wishes to engage in that culture, and the raising of 
cacao. The vast and extensive i>igcnios constitute a 
group by themselves, and are owned by some of the 
oldest families in Cuba. 

The bay itself can hold all the ships of the navy that 
it might be found desirable to send there, and as the 
water is deep, and the seaward hills protect from hurri- 
canes, nothing better could, or should, be asked by 
Uncle Sam — especially as he got it all for nothing, and 
presumably knows enough not to " look a gift-horse in 
the mouth." Its situation is all that could be desired, 
with respect to its command of the Windward Channel 
and the route to Panama, and it will afford a fine ren- 
dezvous for our war-ships, while the canal is being con- 
structed and after it is open. 

When I paid my first visit to the south coast of Cuba, 
in 1887, nobody aboard ship ever thought of pointing 
out Daiquiri, about midway between Guantanamo and 
Santiago, which the maps did not even dignify with the 
designation of snrgidci'o, or anchoring-place ; but since 
General Shafter landed there with our troops for the 
invasion of Cuba, in June, 1898, it has been a conspic- 
uous landmark. Its importance ceased with the ending 
of the war ; but not so that of Santiago and the Morro, 
which has, if possible, been enhanced. 

Here is what I wrote at first sight of the latter, years 
ago: All in sight now are the Cobre Mountains, the 
Copper Range of Cuba, reputed storehouse of minerals, 
especially of copper and iron. At last, a break in the 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 39 

coast reveals the object of our search, the entrance to 
Santiago's harbor. The hne of chffs, washed by the 
rough sea-waves, is abruptly terminated by what appears 
to be an artificial construction, and nearer approach 
discloses the most picturesque fort and castle ever built, 
perhaps, in the New World. The great cliff, its base 
hollowed into caverns by the wave action of centuries, 
is carried up from the sea-line in a succession of walls, 
towers, turrets, forming a most perfect type of the rock- 
ribbed fortress of mediaeval times. Perched upon the 
lowermost wall and overhanging the sea, is a domed 
sentry-box of stone, flanked by cannon evidently old 
when the history of our land was new. 

The waves have eaten into this cliff all round its 
base, so that it may not be many years ere this tower 
totters and falls into the sea. Above, the lines of 
masonry are sharply defined, each guarded terrace reced- 
ing from the one below it, each ornamented with antique 
and useless cannon, and the whole dominated by a mas- 
sive tower. The pilot boards us at the harbor entrance 
and guides our steamer close beneath the impending 
battlements, and we note the group of idle soldiers above, 
so near that we can hear them converse. We sweep 
past this jutting promontory, guarded by ancient fort 
with walls of pink and gray harmoniously blended, and 
quickly another battery faces us, opposite the entrance 
,to a lateral bay with snowy sand-beach. This second 
fortification is already succumbing to the assaults of the 
waves, and has been abandoned. Two hundred feet 
above us the castled fortress rears its ramparts for a 
moment, then we have glided past, and are pursuing a 
sinuous course toward the city of Santiago. 

That description of old Morro might have been written 



40 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

in 1904, instead of nearly a score of years ago, so far as 
the -superficial aspect of the castle is concerned. And 
since then, as we know, there has been assembled in 
front of it the flower of our navy ; big battle-ships, 
protected and unprotected cruisers, dynamite-discharging 
'' Vesuviuses," torpedo craft, " destroyers," and every- 
thing of that sort. 

Nearly two months intervened between the discovery 
of Cervera's squadron in Santiago's harbor and the 
surrender of the city, and during forty days and more 
the war-ships delivered themselves of desultory bom- 
bardments. When time hung particularly heavy on his 
hands, the commander of the squadron would order a 
bombardment of the Morro ; and yet, notwithstanding 
the efforts of the Yankees to reduce this venerable pile, 
by casting at it tons and tons of metal, after all was over 
it was found to be about as good as ever.* 

So the IMorro of my first visit was still the Morro of 
my last: apparently unchanged, except by a cost of 
whitewash or some visible attempt at cleanliness— of 
which, having been in Spanish hands so long, it stood 
much in need. 

If the various bombardments of the Morro proved 

* From Admiral Sampson's reports : 

" i6th June. — Bombarded forts at Santiago to-day, 7 -.30 a. m. 
to ID a. m., and have silenced works quickly, without injury of 
any kind, though stationed within 2000 yards. 

" i6th June. — Bombarded forts for 42 minutes ; firing very ac- 
curate. The batteries were silenced completely. Fleet not injured. 

"2d July. — Bombarded forts at entrance of Santiago, and also 
Punta Gorda battery inside, silencing their fire." 

Secretary-of-War Algers comments : 

" The total result of Admiral Sampson's shelling consisted 
in the dismounting of one muzzle-loading brass cannon, de- 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 41 

■anything, it was that cannon-fire from ships against a 
rock fort perched upon a crag was ineffectual. Witness, 
also, the futility of Admiral Sampson's fire upon Puerto 
Rico's Morro at San Juan. Neither fortress was injured 
to any extent ; but when it came to pegging shot at the 
vessels in Cervera's fleet, all must admit, there was 
some damage done. 

Through the channel which brave Hobson and his 
seven companions tried to block by sinking the " Merri- 
mac," on the third of June, 1898, and which was traversed 
by Cervera's fleet in its forlorn dash for liberty just a 
month later, we sail into " the finest natural harbor 
in the world." Until you have passed through that 
channel and gained the harbor, you can hardly under- 
stand how it was Cervera remained so long behind those 
hills, as " snug as a bug in a rug," without being dis- 
covered. But there he lay for more than forty days, 
secure, if not contented, before the Americans could 
force him out. And it was not the Americans, then, 
but the Spaniards, who sent poor, foolish Cervera forth 
to his doom. 

There is room in that harbor for several fleets to lie 
without rubbing noses, and from on board ship you may 

scribed as a 'very ancient pattern,' on the battery east of 
Morro, and in the ' damaging ' of one of the two modern 
breech-loading rifles on a naval mount at Punta Gorda battery. 
Not another gun was found to be injured or dismounted. It 
seems incredible that such repeated heavy bombardments could 
have accomplished so little. The only real damage was to a 
non-military edifice, a small lighthouse, and, in several places, 
the picturesque and historical Morro Castle, nearly four cen- 
turies old, was somewhat marred, but not materially injured, 
by the shots. — From " The Spanish-American War," by R. A. 
Alger, Secretary-of-War, 1897-99. 



42 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

view the city, with its oriental architecture, its plaza, 
marine park, cathedral and sea of roofs disporting 
various colors — red predominating — at just the right 
perspective for the best effect. There is no other city 
with just the warmth of coloring that Santiago has; 
nor, perhaps, wdth a more intense warmth of atmosphere, 
for it appears an exotic always attractive — from a dis- 
tance — and always stewing in the heat of blazing sun. 

It must not be imagined that the Americans, in 1898, 
were the only ones to " make history " in Santiago 
harbor; though they put an end to Spanish domination 
in Cuba through their operations off its mouth and their 
march upon the city. Santiago was founded in 15 14, 
or '15, by Diego Velasquez, who had with him, among 
other distinguished individuals, Hernando Cortes and 
Bartolome de las Casas, the former of whom sailed 
from this harbor for Mexico, in 15 19, having been pre- 
ceded by Grijalva, from the same port, the year previous. 
The fortifications were soon begun and the Morro built; 
but the latter seems to have been more ornamental than 
useful, having been of no use in repelling the attacks of 
pirates and privateers, who, in the years 1537, '53, and 
'92 captured the city and sacked it at their leisure. 

One of the most gallant of naval fights took place in 
this harbor between a Spanish and a French privateer, 
which lasted two days, at the end of the second day the 
Frenchman retiring, crippled, from the combat. In 1662, 
just one hundred years before the English took Havana, 
a British force under Lord Winsor landed at Agua- 
dores, near the Morro, which they captured by assault 
and blew up, marched upon Santiago, and then marched 
out 'again, with the church bells of the city, negro slaves, 
guns, and all the treasure they could find. Spain was 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 43 

almost everybody's enemy, those years, and the Spanish 
colonies suffered severely for the sins of the mother land. 

It was for Spanish sins, of omission as well as com- 
mission, that Santiago suffered in 1898; that Shafter 
landed troops at Daiquiri, and marched upon the city, 
while Sampson and the fleet kept watch and ward with- 
out. The particulars of that brief campaign are too fresh 
in the public mind to demand more than mere mention in 
this connection; but we cannot ignore Las Guasimas, El 
Caney, and San Juan, any more than we can the Morro 
and Santiago itself, for the successive conflicts at these 
places led up to and opened the way for the final sur- 
render of both city and castle-fortress. 

Almost as many volumes have been written about this 
invasion of Santiago province and discharged at an inof- 
fensive public as there were cannon-shot discharged at 
the common enemy, the Spaniards. One cannot read all 
of them, but there are a few which should not be ignored, 
such as Lodge's " War with Spain," Alger's " Spanish- 
American War," and above all. President Roosevelt's 
vivid and racy " Rough Riders." In the last-named we 
have the personal view of the war from a soldier's stand- 
point; and, though President Roosevelt does not claim 
that he .was "alone in Cuba," nor won the fight at San 
Juan Hill unaided, still, he took a prominent part in that 
memorable attack. " There were others," also, and most 
of them have written about their experiences, so it would 
ill beseem me to go over the ground ; though, in all humil- 
ity perhaps I may be permitted to mention the salient 
features of the invasion. This, indeed, I have done 
already, for the campaign, as intimated, was as brief as 
it was vigorous, and was over almost before it began. 
Not before many a gallant soldier lost his life, however, 



44 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

and i^iiany another sizzled in tropic sunshine and soaked 
in torrential downpours in the trenches, while the dreary 
weeks went by, and the Spaniards held out. " What was 
it begun for, to be so soon done for ? " might be asked of 
this campaign ; and the answer would be : Begun for 
the Cubans, and done for the Spaniards. At least, they 
were " done for " at its ending — " done brown," and for 
all time, so far as their rule in America was concerned. 

The visitor to Havana will be asked, perchance, to 
" Remember the Maine " ; in Santiago he will be im- 
portuned by the colored cabbies about the hotels to 
remember San Juan and El Caney — also to take a trip 
thither in their conveyances. Don't bother with them, 
if the weather is fine, but take a walk out there at early 
morning. San Juan is the nearer to Santiago of the two 
historic places, scant two miles, in fact. 

On the way you pass the " surrender tree," where Gen- 
eral Shafter met the Spanish General, Toral, and ar- 
ranged the terms of capitulation. It is a ceiba, but a 
small one, and would hardly have sufficed to protect the 
bulky form of the doughty American General in a thunder 
storm. This fact w^as impressed upon me, because I was 
caught in one, and compelled to take shelter beneath the 
branches of that historic silk-cotton. It also occurs to 
me that, if the rain fell during those July days in 1898 
as it fell on me that afternoon in May, 1904, the boys in 
the trenches must have suffered from moisture ; and it 
certainly did, for they were there in the height of the 
rainy season, which, when I was there last, had hardly 
commenced. 

I understood, also, how it was our gallant soldiers did 
not go forward any faster, for when I essayed to walk 
to the city, after the shower, I slipped back at least two 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 45 

steps for every one ahead. Progression, in such circum- 
stances, and especially when it is hindered by hostile 
Spaniards armed with Mausers (and expert Mausers they 
were, too) would be rather difficult, not to say impossible. 
There were also the barbed-wire entanglements, and the 
effluvia from the Spanish bodies, living and dead, to be 
overcome ; so, on the whole, the boys had very good rea- 
sons for not " waltzing " into Santiago right off after they 
had taken Kettle Hill, San Juan, and Caney. 

From reading President Roosevelt's interesting narra- 
tive, one might believe it was only necessary for him to 
give a whoop and to say " Come on, boys," for the whole 
thing to be accomplished in a jiffy. But it wasn't done 
that way, for, though the soldiers whooped " to beat the 
band," the stolid Spaniards didn't "scare worth a cent," 
but remained right there for quite a while, behind the 
trenches and block-houses, and varied the monotony of 
things by boring holes in the boys with their Mausers. 
This is the story told me by one who was " on the spot," 
and it coincides with other authentic narratives, so it 
will have to " go," despite tales to the contrary.* 

There is nothing now at San Juan to remind one of the 
fierce charge of the Americans up the hill, save the 
monument erected on its summit, and the remains of the 
trenches, the block-house, etc. The intervening seasons 
have woven a web of verdure over the slopes, the Cuban 
agriculturi^s — albeit somewhat slow to forgather for 
labor — have tilled the fields around, and the whole scene 
is bathed in an atmosphere of peace. When I was there, 
one afternoon in May, a care-free mocking-bird was 

* Roosevelt and his Rough Riders " did not join the in- 
infantry in its charge on San Juan blockhouse and that portion 
to the left of the Santiago road known as San Juan, but made their 



46 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

trilling its melodious song in a thicket near the hill-top, 
and a careless negro boy was whistling aimlessly while 
seated at the base of the monument. We three were the 
only living beings then in sight, save for some distant 
object like a scarecrow, which I knew to be a native, 
plodding behind a pair of oxen hitched to a crooked stick, 
with which he was scratching the surface of the soil. 

Enwrapped in sweet solitude was the renowned San 
Juan Hill, and it was difficult to imagine, looking down 
the deserted slopes, that it had ever swarmed with the 
gallant Boys in Blue, yelling " for all they were worth," 
fighting like the heroes that they were, and collectively 
working up the war-scene that made their Lieutenant 
Colonel President of these United States, and their 
Colonel a Major General of its armies ! Greater rewards 
for shorter service, perhaps no men ever received ; and 
yet, someone has declared republics to be ungrateful ! 

Not all the fighters at San Juan, nor at El Caney, over 
there where the ruined block-house stands, received 
rewards commensurate with their deeds, because, merely, 
we could make them all Presidents or Major Generals; 
but then, they have the privilege of writing books, which 
is a noble one, though devoid of substantial remuneration. 

assault on that part of San Juan ridge to the right of the road 
after San Juan blockhouse and the trenches to the left of the road 
had been taken by the infantry and part of the cavalry brigade." 
" In spite of the calamitous newspaper reports to the con- 
trary and the statements of amateur soldiers accompanying the 
5th corps, there was never a day at Santiago when the troops at 
the front were not supplied with the three most important com- 
ponents of the army ration — coffee (and sugar), bacon, and hard 
bread, although most of them threw away their haversacks, con- 
taining three days' rations, as they went into action."— R. A. 
Alger's " Spanish-American War." 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 47 

All, or nearly all, the Rough Riders are mentioned by 
name in the book their leader wrote, so they are sure to 
go down to immortal fame with their deeds blazoned on 
a tablet more enduring than brass or bronze. 

The quaint Indian village of El Caney, where Ludlow, 
Lawton, and Chaffee, humble heroes all three, performed 
the all but impossible task of taking a strongly fortified 
post with obsolete artillery using black powder, followed 
up with rifle and bayonet, is a more satisfactory place to 
visit than San Juan, owing to the larger number of its 
attractions. Here, where the first brave Americans to 
enter the fort found it " floored with dead Spaniards," 
the fighting was stubborn and protracted ; but the enemy 
had to give way, all the same, and fled the place in a 
hurry. However, others have told the story better than 
it can be retold now, the enemy having departed and the 
gallant Americans having gone back to their homes. 

Returning to the city, we find it little changed from 
what it was nearly twenty years ago, except in the matter 
of cleanliness. The people are the same, but the city is 
cleaner, every important street being swept and dusted 
every morning before breakfast, while some attention 
is paid to domestic sanitation. There is still a scant water 
supply and no sewerage system, even after the much- 
vaunted doings of General Wood, when he was a dweller 
in the palace and had everything his own way, and every- 
thing to do with it as he liked. Still, there is no longer 
the specter of " Yellow Jack " overhanging the city, as of 
yore; though, doubtless, he is somewhere in hiding, 
awaiting his opportunity — which will come, probably, 
when the sewerage system is actually installed. 

There should be ample supply of water in Santiago, 
from the springs and mountain streams in the sur- 



48 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

rounding country ; but there is not, and such supply as 
there is cannot be depended upon, being arbitrarily shut 
off at the time it is most desired. The attractions here 
are the plaza, which is in no way remarkable ; the gov- 
ernor's palace, of which the same may be said ; the loca- 
tion, on a hillside above the magnificent bay, which, as it 
was a gift of God, is, of course, beyond all praise. 

Colonel Roosevelt wrote of Santiago, in his book: 
" The surroundings of the city are very grand. The cir- 
cling mountains rise sheer and high. The plains are 
threaded by rapid, winding brooks and are dotted here 
and there with quaint villages, curiously picturesque from 
their combining traces of an outworn old-world civiliza- 
tion with new and raw barbarism. The graceful, feath- 
ery bamboos rise by the water's edge, and elsewhere, even 
on the mountain-crests, where the soil is wet and rank 
enough ; and the splendid royal and cocoanut palms 
tower high above the matted jungle." 

That is a presentment of Santiago and its environment 
" in a nutshell," the swift, all-embracing glance of the 
trained observer; and nothing more need be added. I 
said there are few attractions in Santiago, but there are 
several spots that one should view, and one of these is an 
unwholesome mud-hole down by the slaughter house, 
where the unfortunate filibusters captured with the " Vir- 
ginius," in 1873, were massacred. There has long been a 
tablet there to mark the spot, but General Wood affixed 
another of bronze ; though he did not fill up the malarious 
mudhole ; or if he. did, another has taken its place, and 
it is decidedly unsafe to linger there long enough to read 
the inscriptions. 

The Morro, of course, will demand a visit, and as there 
is a good road thither all the way, it should not be 







o 






HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 49 

omitted from one's itinerary. Neither should the Cayo 
Smith, near which the " Reina Mercedes " and the " Mer- 
rimac " were sunk ; nor the iron mines, if permission can 
be obtained to journey over the private railroad that runs 
from the big iron pier into the country. It is said that, 
by a very strange chance, some of our war-ships engaged 
in bombarding the Morro and Santiago, at the time of the 
Cervera affair, were belted with armor made from the 
iron from Santiago's mines. It may have seemed like 
bringing coals to Newcastle ; but this sort our sea-fighters 
heaped upon the Spaniards' heads, as it were. And there 
is copper, any amount of it, in the mountains across the 
bay, the Indians having mined it, and the Spaniards after 
them, before the United States were born and christened. 
When I went up to view the mines of Cobre, situated 
about twelve miles from the harbor's further shore, it 
was seated upon a flatcar drawn by mules, with only an 
umbrella between me and the blazing sky overhead, that 
the journey was performed. I do not desire to repeat the 
performance, though the mines were worth something to 
see, and in the chapel of Cobre village I had a glimpse 
of the famous " Virgen de la Caridad," who (or which) 
once lost her (its) head, a few years ago, and with it 
thirty thousand dollars' worth of precious jewels with 
which she (or it) was at that time adorned. When I saw 
her, however, she had recovered her head, and was 
resplendent in jewels again; though they really appeared 
to be paste. This Virgin is an ancient one, her 
sponsors owning up to four hundred years, as she is 
said to have belonged originally to a renowned cavalier, 
Alonzo de Ojeda, who gave her to an Indian chief, early 
in the sixteenth century, escaping from whom she found 
her way to the Bay of Nipe, in some mysterious manner, 



50 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

where she was discovered by some Spaniards floating 
aimlessly about in a frail canoe. They rescued and 
brought her to Cobre, where, in gratitude for her rehabili- 
tation, she performed many miraculous cures, and inci- 
dentally acquired a fortune in pearls and precious stones, 
which some sacrilegious thief appropriated. 

I did not think, when I was at Santiago in 1887, that, 
following down the coast from the harbor-mouth, I 
should at a time then in the future behold upon the 
shore the wrecks of Spanish war-ships destroyed by 
Yankee cannon-fire ; nor did I hope to, either. But there 
they are, or were, rusted heaps of twisted iron, scattered 
all the way from Nima Nima and Acerraderos, only a 
few miles from the harbor-entrance, to Rio Turquino, 
forty-five miles away, where at last the " Colon " was 
beached. This southern coast westward from the Morro 
is bordered by the Sierras, with majestic Pico Turquino 
dominating all, more than 8000 feet in height. 

Before setting out on the trip along-shore, climb to the 
crest of the hill on which Santiago is built and take a 
parting view of the city, the mountains, and the bay be- 
tween the two, for it may not be your privilege to behold 
another like it. Beyond the far-sloping roofs of red and 
sun-burnt tiles, covering walls in every hue, which stretch 
from crest of hill to water's edge, lies the harbor, its 
expanse of deepest blue ringed round with green and 
golden hills, bathed in the sunshine of this tropic isle. 

Mountains are in sight all the way westward to Cape 
Cruz, behind which lies the deep gulf of Guacanaybo, and 
the Cauto River, largest stream in Cuba, which waters a 
vast extent of cattle country, lying between the Cuba 
railway and the Sierra Maestra range of mountains 
along the south coast, The chief city of this large and 



HISTORIC HARBORS OF CUBA 51 

fertile valley of the Canto is Manzanillo, which has an 
immense trade, owing to the vast resonrces of the region, 
but is hot and very unhealthy. It was at Manzanillo that 
the last shot of the Spanish- American war was fired, news 
of the peace protocol arriving just as several Yankee gun- 
boats had made ready to shell the town. 

Twenty-five miles inland from Manzanillo lies the old 
town of Bayamo, isolated from the coast and railroads 
in the center of the great basin drained by the Cauto. 
Here took place the Republican uprising of 1868, here (it 
is said) the Cuban troops actually came in contact with 
the Spaniards and won a sort of victory ; and here, in 
the year 1835 was born Don Tomas Estrada Palma, first 
President of Cuba. Bayamo has often served as a place 
of refuge for the coast people, and it vies in picturesque- 
ness and respectability with Trinidad, on the coast of 
Santa Clara province. Trinidad has a poor harbor and is 
yet isolated from the great centers ; but it is a charming 
place of residence, with fine mountain scenery, and is one 
of the oldest towns in Cuba, having been founded in 15 13, 
only two years after the first settlement was made at 
Baracoa. Here Hernando Cortes outfitted his expedition 
in 1 5 19, at which time it was the residence of many cava- 
liers who afterward became famous in the conquest of 
Mexico. 

Between Manzanillo and Trinidad lie the " Gardens of 
the Queen," or chains of coral cays, discovered and 
named by Columbus on his second voyage to America. 
But these cays are avoided by the steamers, surrounded 
as they are by reefs and shoals, and land is quite lost 
sight of in crossing the gulf, the Trinidad mountains 
then leaping out, a break in the coast indicating the 
entrance to Cienfuegos. Founded in the last century, 



52 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Cienfuegos can hardly be said to be historic; but it is 
better than that, it is successful. It is the great sugar 
city of the south coast, and is similarly situated to San- 
tiago, though without the beautiful environment that the 
latter has. 

It is the original " City of the Hundred Fires," 
Cienfuegos, the Spanish of it, being derived from a 
remark of Columbus when he entered the beautiful bay 
and beheld the flashing lights of myriad fire-beetles 
along shore. This city has shared in the renewed pros- 
perity of Cuba, and is flourishing as never before. Its 
plaza is one of the finest in the island, and though situ- 
ated in a flat country, with heights only at a distance, 
Cienfuegos has a fair reputation for salubrity. Not far 
from the city are the falls of the Habanilla, called the 
" Cuban Minnehaha," though still in their setting of 
virgin verdure. 

Beyond Cienfuegos is a wild coast country, a sea 
dotted with coral cays intervening between it and the 
Isle of Pines, north of which is Batabano, the original 
Havana, but now down-at-the-heel and hardly holding 
its own. Away westward stretches the Pinar del Rio 
province, Avith infrequent harbors, and southward the 
Archipelago of Los Canarreos, the old-time cruising 
ground of sea-robbers and the grave of many a treasure 
galleon. 



Ill 

IN CUBA'S CAPITAL, AND ROUNDABOUT 

The entrance to Havana harbor — The Punta and the Morro — 
Havana's dead-and-buried past — The Havana of yesterday 
and to-day — What the Americans have accomplished — A 
horrible condition of affairs — Yellow fever practically 
abolished — Contaminated wells and open waterways — 
Havana's pure and adequate water supply — The springs of 
the Almendares River — A reconstructed city — The innumer- 
able hacks and guaguas — Quaint old Spanish calles and 
interiors — In the reeking, malodorous days of Spanish 
domination ^ Havana's lack of good hotels and need of bet- 
ter ones — Objects of interest in and around Havana — The 
great cathedral and its connection with Christopher Col- 
umbus — Memorials of ancient Havana — Fragments of the 
city walls — The garrote in the penitentiary — Marianao, 
Jesus del Monte, the Cerro, and the Vedado — The tropical 
Almendares River — Colon cemetery and the captain-gen- 
eral's gardens — Tobacco culture and the Vuelta Abajo 
region — What may be seen in Guanajay and San Antonio 
de los Banos — The disappearing rivers and blind fishes of 
Cuba — Batabano and the Isle of Pines — An island of 
romance and mystery. 

CUBA has put her dead past behind her; so has 
Havana. The dead past must have been 
deodorized and buried by Havana, for one can 
no longer smell it. In times agone no seafarer 
through that narrow gateway between the Morro and 
the Punta needed a pilot into the harbor of Havana, 
for he had only to follow his nose. We may safely 

53 



54 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

venture, now, where of old even " angels might fear to 
tread " perchance they caught a whiff of the malodorous 
gales off-shore, which then were pestilential beyond 
belief. 

Morro Castle, that grim and frowning fortress at the 
harbor-mouth, was begun sometime in the first half of 
the sixteenth century, and the city that lies opposite in 
1 5 19; but the former was not finished when, in 1585, 
galliard Sir Francis Drake came a-sailing these waters, 
and the latter is not finished yet. Indeed, it has but 
recently entered upon a new career, which is destined to 
cast that of the old Havana into the shade. 

That new career was begun about five years ago, 
when the Spaniards departed and the Americanos took 
temporary possession of the city and the island ; and it 
was the same old Havannah of the sixteenth century 
that greeted me when, twenty-three years ago, I touched 
in, and passed a sweltering day and reeking night in 
city and harbor. The universal enemy, at that time, 
was " Yellow Jack," who held sway at least six months 
in the year. Whosoever felt his polluted breath gen- 
erally succumbed, and off the Cuban coast we had buried 
a fine young man, a victim of his ; so it was with rather 
gloomy apprehensions that we entered Havana harbor 
and sniffed the smells borne to us from the shore. Not 
even old Cologne could boast a more varied assortment 
of evil odors, nor a more malefic compound in the aggre- 
gate, than the Havana of those days before the war. 

And it was the same when, as special commissioner 
for the Columbian Exposition, accredited to the Gover- 
nor General of Cuba, I visited Havana, in 1891. Nearly 
ten years had elapsed since my previous visit, yet no 
improvement had been made in sanitary conditions^ 




The Palm Avenue, Governor General's Garden. 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 55 

They had long since reached their worst stage possible, 
at which point they remained until the advent of the 
Americanos. 

What has taken place since the Americans took 
charge, less than five years ago, is known to all, for our 
countrymen did not hide their light under a bushel. 
They let in the light and the air, as well, so that the 
Havana of " before the war" no longer exists. 

Approaching Havana from any direction, even from 
the leeward (as one generally does approach it in entering 
the harbor), one is no longer saluted by the odors of an 
uncleanly city. One would hardly suspect the existence 
of the acres and acres of filth, accumulated during cen- 
turies in the harbor, were it not now and then stirred 
up by external agency. 

This is only occasionally done, however, and the placid 
surface of the vast cul de sac reveals no evidence of the 
potential evil it contains. It is recognized that the 
harbor holds a perpetual menace to the city's health, 
which may become actual and terrible should the vast 
acreage of sediment be exposed to the sun, and the next 
great work of the authorities will doubtless be the open- 
ing of another outlet to the sea. At present the only 
opening is that guarded by old Morro ; but it would seem 
perfectly feasible to break through the low-lying land 
barrier between the harbor and the suburb of Guana- 
bacoa. 

When the Spaniards first landed here they found a 
beautiful, eligible site for a carenage — a smoothly 
receding beach, guarded by coral rocks, upon which they 
could careen their vessels for repairs when necessary. 
This beach was long ago covered with masonry and no 
longer exists as a careening place ; but on or near its 



56 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

site we find the custom house of the present day. At a 
Httle distance away stands a tcmplctc, or chapel, erected 
near the original ceiba tree beneath which the first mass 
was held nearly 400 years ago. 

Beginning near this point, the city rapidly spread 
itself towards the hills, such as " Jesus del Monte," 
about 200 feet high, near which stands the picturesque 
castle-fort, Atares; but the vast majority of the inhab- 
itants resided, as they reside to-day, on a plain lying only 
four feet above sea-level. 

The harbor has an extreme length of about three 
miles, with a breadth of a mile and a half in its broadest 
part, while its entrance, opposite the Morro, is only 400 
yards across. Anciently, it was surrounded by mangrove 
swamps which have been " reclaimed " by dumping in 
the street refuse and garbage. In their original state 
these swamps were first-class breeders of malarial poison, 
and they were hardly improved by the Spanish process 
of reclamation. Then again, the scant soil covered a 
permeable rock foundation, into which the foul liquids, 
when emptied, readily disappeared ; and as " out of 
sight out of mind " is a proverb with the ha];)py-go- 
lucky Spaniards, they gave themselves no concern as to 
where the sewage of their growing city went. The 
sinks and excavations in the more solid rock back from 
the shore became filled with polluted liquids, of course ; 
but the summer rains and occasional high tides sometimes 
washed their contents into the bay. Later on abortive 
attempts were made looking to a complete sewerage 
system ; but even to-day none such exists. 

When the Americans came here they found a horrible 
condition of affairs in matters of sanitation, and it is to 
their credit that they almost performed the impossible 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 57 

task of cleansing the city. It is actually as clean as it 
is possible to make it, without turning it inside out and 
upside down, and expending millions in the work of 
reclamation. 

Even the Spaniards and Cubans admit that the 
Americanos have improved their city vastly. They com- 
placently regard the wonderful work as, somehow, a 
miracle of Nature, aided by Providence — and themselves 
— at which the Americans assisted. It " riled " them 
awfully to be told, in effect, that they had been heedless 
of the simplest laws of sanitation, and they bitterly 
resented the inspection and consequent disinfection of 
their houses. But the great and good work went on, 
nevertheless, and to-day it is continued by the Cubans^ 
along the lines laid out by their teachers. 

Every morning at daylight, or promptly at five o'clock, 
I heard the chatter and the clatter of a band of Cuban 
" White Wings," carefully sweeping up the garbage in 
the Prado, and I knew, from the chatter and the clatter 
in other streets, that the process was going on else- 
where — all over the city. These men were closely fol- 
lowed by carts, which, still with lighted lanterns beneath 
the axle (showing that they were sent out early to the 
work) conveyed the sweepings to the dock, whence they 
were carried on lighters far out beyond the Morro and 
dropped into the sea. There is no more dumping of gar- 
bage into the harbor ; there are no longer any evil odors 
drifting across the city, eddying into the streets and set- 
tling into courts so solidly that, of old, they could almost 
be cut with a knife. 

It cannot be expected of the natives that they will 
change their costumbres — their ingrained habits — and 
become personally and individually what they have been 



58 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

forced to become as a civic body ; but, at least, they have 
been impressed with the advantages of cleanHness, so 
far as their city is concerned. In the work of reclamation 
the Americans were aided by the situation of Havana 
somewhat, but chiefly by the abundance and purity of its 
water supply. 

More than 40,000,000 gallons of the purest water are 
delivered daily in Havana from the springs of the Al- 
mendares River, situated about nine miles distant from 
the city. The Almendares is itself a beautiful stream, 
which reaches the sea less than four miles from the 
Morro. It is bordered by a picturesque country, contain- 
ing royal palms, bananas — in fact, all kinds of tropical 
vegetation — and its copious springs, gushing forth in an 
attractive gorge, are frequently resorted to by the 
Havanese when on recreation bent. They are reached by 
the " United Railways of Havana," which maintains an 
excellent service of four trains each way daily. 

After its wells had become contaminated, Havana dug 
a ditch from the Almendares springs of the " Vento," 
and brought the water to the city. This was more than 
three hundred years ago, and an imfailing supply has 
been maintained ever since. At first, however, (and, as 
well, during centuries of Spanish domination in Cuba) 
this purest of waters flowed mainly through an open 
ditch, into which drained the sewage of the suburbs, 
through other ditches and polluted streams. The inhab- 
itants along the way not only took tribute of the water as 
it passed, but bathed themselves, their horses, and their 
cattle in it ; while dead dogs and cats, .and sometimes 
human corpses, were found floating therein. Then mas- 
sive aqueducts were constructed of the substantial ma- 
sonry for which the Spaniards are famous, by which the 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 59 

city was partially supplied. Now, it is claimed, there is 
an inexhaustible supply for every purpose. Generally 
speaking there is great risk to health in drinking the 
water furnished in tropical cities ; but it would seem that 
Havana must be considered an exception. 

With this abundant flow of purest, softest water cours- 
ing through the mains, permeating every dwelling of 
importance, flushing the gutters, cleansing the streets 
and squares, and cooling the air, Havana has become in 
a sense revivified, even regenerated. And, as all the day 
long (with the exception of a few hours in the morning) 
a strong breeze sweeps the city from the sea, and the 
nights are always cool, there are many hours in which one 
may take rest and obtain real recreation, in Havana. 

At present, it has been remarked, Havana and San- 
tiago are enjoying a miraculous immunity from yellow 
fever; but an epidemic awaits them both when, their 
polluted soils, surcharged as they are, shall be excavated 
for the long-promised, much-vaunted sewer systems, 
which are to forever rid them of danger. Then at least 
one terrible wave of devastation will sweep over each city 
which may make up for all the years of exemption it has 
enjoyed during the reign of superficial cleanliness. 

The greatest improvements the ante-bellum visitor 
will notice are in the streets, squares, and parks. The 
menace of yellow fever having been removed, the visitor 
may yield himself to the enjoyment of the many places of 
recreation in the city and its suburbs. The most promi- 
nent feature of Havana's recreative system is, of course, 
the Prado, which bisects the city, adorned with palms, 
statues, music stands, and overflowing with a wealth of 
tropical vegetation. It was thought perfect many years 
ago, it certainly has nearly reached perfection since our 



6o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

engineers opened it out to the shore and bestowed upon 
the Havanese the blessings of the " Malacon," which 
overlooks the harbor entrance, the Morro, and the open 
sea, 

" Reconstruido en i()02," is the inscription on a plate 
of bronze set up near the Central Square, or 
" Parque Isabel," by former Governor Wood ; and 
reconstruido, renovated, regenerated, might truthfully 
be said of all parts of the city, touched by the magic 
wand of the far-sighted, self-sacrificing Americanos. 
Many of the sacrifices made by Americans may have been 
(probably were) unintentional ; but the fact remains that, 
while individual enterprises have failed, and personal 
endeavor has been inadequately rewarded, the Cubans 
have benefited from the push and energy of their neigh- 
bors from the United States. 

The Americans here, many of them, are feeling the 
heavy hand that invariably is laid upon the pioneer. 
Among the pioneers in a direction tending toward the 
highest morality are the leaders in the movement for 
establishing in Havana that noble institution, the Young 
Men's Christian Association. They have already broken 
ground and will soon commence the work which has 
proved so beneficent in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. 

There are a few notable successes, such, for example, 
as the great Cuba Railway and the electric traction 
company of the capital. In no other respect has Havana 
advanced so much as in its urban and suburban communi- 
cation. When I wa3 here before, the traveler had to 
depend upon the guagnas, or broken-down omnibuses, 
and the equally obsolescent hacks. Both vehicles are 
still in evidence and evidently well patronized; but in 
addition we have well-equipped electric cars. They 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 6i 

pervade the city now, whereas in former times there were 
no means of rapid communication between points within 
it and outside. Many delightful rides may be enjoyed, 
for instance, into the suburbs, as to the Cerro, the old 
fortress, the Vedado and Marianao, charming residential 
sections, near the mouth of the Almendares ; the botanic 
garden, the Colon cemetery, etc. The system is far from 
complete, but is being constantly improved and extended. 
Instead of driving the hacks and guaguas out of exist- 
ence, the electric cars seem to have stimulated them 
somewhat; and, if anything, they are more numerous 
than ever. 

While I have noted no improvement in the omnibuses, 
which are still dirty and despicable, I must admit that the 
hacks or victorias, together with their drivers and their 
horses, have vastly improved. The drivers are as 
impudent as ever; and as prone to overcharge the guile- 
less tourist ; but their horses are evidently better fed and 
better treated. Not that the Hispano-Cuban character 
has changed for the better, perhaps ; but that the natives' 
self-interest has been successfully appealed to. American 
example has done much ; but American money has done 
vastly more ! 

The changes made by the Americans have all been for 
the best, and they have shown a wise discrimination in 
their improvements, having touched nothing hallowed by 
tradition or made famous through its associations with 
the historic past. Thus, while it might be to the eventual 
benefit of Havana for many of its streets to be widened 
and an open artery for traffic driven straight through the 
city from the harbor to the hills, yet nothing has been 
done in this direction. Those quaint old Spanish calles, 
Obrapia, O'Reilly, and Obispo, still exist, and are yet the 



62 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

chief shopping centers, as of yore. The chief of all, 
Obispo, has been newly paved, with smooth cement, 
instead of the rough blocks over which rattled the noisy 
conveyances, vastly to its permanent improvement; but 
its flanking neighbors, O'Reilly and Obrapia, still show 
their antiquity in narrow sidewalks, sometimes scarcely a 
foot in width. All three are bits out of Old Spain itself, 
such as we have seen in Seville and in Cordova, with 
awnings stretched from wall to wall throughout the length 
of blocks, doors and grated windows displaying Oriental 
goods, and only an intrusion here and there of the 
American and his more modern wares. 

Nothing, indeed, can change the ways of the 
Spaniard ; he is Americanized in name only, never in 
dress or habitudes. Walking through any of these 
streets, occasional glimpses are afforded of typically 
Spanish interiors, in the open courts containing carriages, 
stables, horses, kitchen, reception rooms, dining hall and 
sleeping apartments, all huddled about a common center, 
and enjoying a common atmosphere, impregnated with 
odors which any well-regulated family in the United 
States would find absolutely unendurable. The courts 
may have an attempt at a fountain, with a thin stream of 
water trickling into a basin containing attractive foliage, 
and may be hung with cages of singing birds ; but the 
atmosphere is just the same — of the stable and the 
kitchen, combined with more offensive odors still ; for the 
Spaniards always make most prominent that department 
of the domestic economy which we desire to conceal. 
They could not conceal it if they desired, in fact, on 
account of their laxity of sanitary regulations. 

In the reeking, malodorous days of Spanish domina- 
tion, a walk through Obrapia and Obispo streets, espec- 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 63 

ially at night, would reveal glimpses of interiors that were 
calculated with malice aforethought to capture the 
unwary and divert the young man's feet from the paths 
of rectitude. Against the iron window grilles were 
pressed the forms of seductively-attired sefioritas, whose 
hands were often extended to grasp the passers-by. A 
shameless traffic was openly carried on, which was not 
only winked at, but encouraged by the authorities. This 
traffic, while it has been banished to other quarters, has 
not been by any means strangled, nor even discouraged ; 
it has been segregated and placed amid the disreputable 
surroundings which naturally pertain to a public vice 
which is privately practiced. 

Havana is no better supplied with hotels than it ever 
was. In fact, one finds here the same old ones, conducted 
after the same slip-shod style, charging the same exorbi- 
tant rates, as of yore. They are for the most part 
Spanish, lacking far more conveniences than they 
possess, and possessing fewer than the average second- 
rate hotel in the United States. Those that are centrally 
situated, on and near the Prado, are highest in price; 
although there is one hotel which has gained a reputation 
for superlative rates, and is consequently a favorite with 
the millionaires, down near the Malecon. There is, 
however, no good hotel on the American plan with 
rates commensurate with its service. Rather, there 
is no good American hotel; though, doubtless, one will 
be built in the very near future, land having been bought 
already and ground broken for the foundations, of one to 
cost a million dollars. As a rule, avoid all the hotels 
that have been recommended to you, especially those with 
well-known names. Then again, avoid all those that have 
no reputations at all, and you will be perfectly safe. In 



64 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS ■ 

other words, you will not remain long in Havana unless 
well-housed and well taken care of, which means that you 
will not remain there at all, after you have seen the sights. 

Objects of interest in and around Havana, there are, 
numerous enough to claim one's attention for perhaps a 
week ; although one may weary of this, the noisiest city in 
the world, in less than half that time. The chief objec- 
tions to Havana are its noises and its perpetual heat of 
daytime. The former cannot be evaded, if one be domi- 
ciled in one of the central hotels ; nor the latter, if one be 
quartered anywhere at all. So there you are, " 'twixt the 
devil and the deep, deep sea," conscientiously desirous to 
" do " the city properly, yet anxious to hie away to fresh 
fields and pastures new. 

Such things as cannot well be avoided may be enumer- 
ated on the fingers of both hands. First of all, there is 
the cathedral, which, though locally called the catcdral 
de la Virgcn dc la Conccpcion, is more widely known to 
fame as that of Columbus. It is so called because, 
according to the Spaniards, the ashes of the great discov- 
erer once rested here, in a niche near the great altar. 
iVccording to the latest investigations, however, the ashes 
of Columbus were never brought here at all (as will be 
shown in one of our chapters on Santo Domingo, further 
on in this book). 

It was in 1795, that, being about to evacuate the island 
of Santo Domingo, the Spaniards in authority at that 
time conceived the idea of removing the remains of 
Columbus from their place of sepulture in the cathedral 
of Santo Domingo, to a niche they had prepared in the 
cathedral at Havana. 

Guided by tradition, merely, they did not even receive 










O 



13 

o 

It. 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 65 

the sanction of an inscription of any sort ; but neverthe- 
less, they gsijly set forth with their findings and deposited 
them, with vast ceremony, in their new resting-place in 
Havana cathedral. There the remains remained, for quite 
another century, and when, in 1899, through force of 
circumstances over which they had lost control, the 
Spaniards were compelled to take their departure from 
Cuba, Captain General Blanco conceived the plan of 
taking away with them the " real and only remains " of 
the great Columbus. So they made their last voyage 
across the Atlantic, and were taken in a war-ship to 
Seville, where they were placed in the cathedral there. 
Already, for centuries, there had been an inscribed slab 
of m.arble let into the cathedral pave, in Seville, with that 
world-famous legend : 

"A Castilla y a Leon 
Mundo Nuevo did Colon"; 

but this slab covered the remains of Don Fernando, 
Christopher's illegitimate son and biographer. Recent 
investigations have shown that the ashes which were, first 
of all, taken from Santo Domingo to Havana, in 1795, 
and last of all taken from Havana to Seville, in 1899, each 
time by misguided Spaniards more zealous than wise, 
were those of Don Diego, and not of Don Christopher. 
So, as it happens, Spain now possesses the remains of 
the two sons of Columbus, Diego and Fernando; but 
those of the great Discoverer still remain in Santo 
Domingo. 

No one can deny that the Spaniards, at last, desired to 
" do the right thing " by the memory of the great 
Columbus. Those who were his contemporaries treated 
him meanly enough while living, as history shows, from 



66 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

King Ferdinand to Isabella and Bobadilla, administering 
kicks and cuffs (when his back was turned) and fawning 
in front of his face. After he died there was a slight 
revulsion of feeling; though it took a long and stub- 
bornly contested process of law to compel King Ferdi- 
nand to give Don Diego his rights as son of the great 
" Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Still, the Spaniards of 
those days, and all other days, were great on grand- 
iloquent inscriptions, which in vast redundancy have since 
overflowed innumerable monuments and cenotaphs. The 
cenotaph in this cathedral was once surmounted by a bust, 
beneath which this inscription told what the Spaniards 
thought of Columbus : 

" Oh, rcstos c iinagcn del grandc Colon, 
Mil siglos diirad gtiardados en la urna 
Y en la remembranza de nuestra nacion." 

" Oh, remains and image of the great Colon, 
A thousand ages thou wilt be preserved in this urn. 
And in the remembrance of our nation." 

Hardly a " thousand ages " passed away before the 
rcstos were again on the move, while both bust and 
urn have disappeared. In their place, the cathedral 
shows merely a vacant niche and a pretentious pedestal 
where once stood a monument. 

There is a statue of Columbus in the court-yard of the 
governor general's palace, on the Plaza de Armas, which 
is of itself a building well worth a visit. It was the 
abode of all the captains-general for seventy years pre- 
ceding the advent of the Americans, and these included 
such names as Campos, Weyler, and Blanco. 

A statue of Ferdinand VII. stands in the center of the 
Plaza de Armas, and no photograph of the palace can be 
taken without this marble in the foreground- It has 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 67 

suffered a better fate than the statue of Queen Isabella, 
lately deceased, which once adorned the " Parque Isabel," 
now known as the Central Square. Somehow or other, 
the Spanish colonials always had a peculiar affection 
for the last King Ferdinand, who was a scamp well 
worthy to be the putative father of the late Queen 
Isabella ; but whose sufferings at the hands of Napoleon 
may have bestowed upon him the air of a martyr, in the 
eyes of his far-distant subjects across the Atlantic. This 
portrait-statue of him is more nearly perfect as a work of 
art than he was as a work of nature. 

Memorials of the old Havannah cluster thickly about 
the Plaza de Armas, and back of the post-office stands the 
Flier sa, or most ancient fortress of the city, built in 1538, 
by command of Hernando de Soto. The Morro is the 
" lion " of Havana, and should by all means be visited ; 
but in the morning, and the nearer sunrise the better — 
provided permission can be obtained. The commander 
of Cabanas issues permits to visit the Morro, and after 
eight or nine in the morning the long walk between the 
two groups of fortresses is very hot and unpleasant. 
From a military point of view, the Cabaiias is the more 
important of the two great works ; but each is picturesque 
in its way, the situation of the Morro, rising sheer from 
the sea a hundred feet, with the great waves thundering 
against walls and parapets, being magnificent. 

Inside the M'orro you are shown the dungeons into 
which the Spaniards cast the Cubans, who were sub- 
sequently murdered by being thrust through a hole-in-the- 
wall over the sea, where the sea-monsters lay in wait for 
their expected prey, in the " sharks' nest," or nido de 
tihurones, a blue water-rift beneath the easternmost 
sentry-box. 



68 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Looking inland from the Punta, opposite the Morro, 
one discerns another memento of ancient Havana, in the 
shape of a sentry tower and a fragment of the old wall 
which once inclosed the city. This wall was doomed to 
demolition many years ago, for the city had outgrown its 
limits and overflowed into the suburbs along shore, before 
the Spaniards loosed their hold. Yet another mural frag- 
ment is a portion of the wall against which a band of 
medical students was shot to death by the Spaniards in 
1871. All these objects are near the jail and peniten- 
tiary, entrance to which may be obtained on application ; 
not so much to view the interior of the prison, as to see 
an historic object on exhibition there. This is the grew- 
some garrotc, or instrument for the execution of con- 
demned criminals. It is an iron pillar affixed to a wooden 
platform about ten feet square and six feet from the 
ground. An iron chair is attached to the column, two 
feet above which is an iron collar, which is closed in front 
by a clasp, after the victim's neck has been inserted. A 
screw protrudes through the back of the collar, which is 
operated by a bar somewhat similar to that of a copy- 
ing press, only it is perpendicular instead of hori- 
zontal. 

The end of the screw is pointed, and when twisted up 
projects about an inch into the center of the ring. The 
victim is placed in the fatal chair, the ring clasped in 
front of his throat, and his hands and feet firmly tied. 
There is a quick turn of the screw, and the spinal column 
is broken, death immediately ensuing. The executioner 
is a middle-aged black man, whose sentence to death was 
commuted to life imprisonment on condition that he 
become the public garroter. At the command of the 
superintendent, he cheerfully consents to show visitors 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 69 

how garroting is performed. For an actual execution he 
is said to receive a gold doubloon per victim. 

The setting of Havana, within a semicircle of rounded 
hills, each the site of an attractive settlement, with towers 
rising above the roof-tops and palms interspersed, is 
extremely " fetching." The gauguas and electric lines 
run out to these suburbs, and even to Marianao, which is 
also reached by steam railroad. This last is a favorite 
bathing resort, and taken together with the nearer Vedado, 
where are rock-hewn baths in the coral reefs of the sea- 
shore, is a lively place during the summer season. There 
is nothing more significant of the change for the better 
that has come over Havana, than the removal of its 
wealthier citizens into the suburbs, and the building there 
of houses for the people of average means. Formerly, 
they were crowded into dark and noisome tenements, fed 
upon foul airs, and deafened by uncouth noises ; but with 
the extension of the trolley system all this is changed. 

Should you desire to see what a tropical river is like, 
without being compelled to journey into the forests, take 
a little trip to the mouth of the Almendares, the springs 
of which supply Havana with its water. Boats may be 
hired, and a pleasurable excursion may be taken up the 
stream, drifting beneath clumps of feathery bamboos, in 
the shade of broad-armed ceiba trees hung with vines and 
air-plants, and between gardens of plantains and bananas. 

Two excursions from Havana which are never omitted 
are, first, to the Colon cemetery, with its magnificent mon- 
uments, notably the firemen's and that to the students 
slain by the Spaniards ; and second, to the captain gen- 
eral's gardens, now the captain general's no longer, but 
belonging to the state. These botanical gardens have 
long been famous, one of the features being an avenue of 



70 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

palms with close-set trunks o'ertopped with canopies of 
verdure. 

Some feel impelled to visit the Vuelta Abajo, in order 
to study the various processes of tobacco culture ; but 
it is not necessary to take that long, hot, dusty, and 
fatiguing ride to the Pinar del Rio region, merely to 
behold the " weed " growing in its native wilds. Tobacco 
farms may be seen in the Connecticut Valley ; they may 
be seen quite near Havana, in Guana jay, reached by a 
few hours' ride over the United Railways. There, too, 
may be seen the vast tobacco barns in which the leaves 
are cured, as well as the perfect plants growing in their 
strength and beauty. The processes are not different 
from the Vuelta Abajo processes, and the scenery by the 
way, of broad fields adorned with innumerable royal 
palms, is not inferior to that of the more distant province. 

The excursion to Guana jay may be made in a few 
hours, leaving Havana in the morning, at 8 :45 ; return- 
ing to the city at about four in the afternoon. But an 
extension of the trip may be made by carriage to the pic- 
turesque port of Mariel, which, with its deep-water harbor 
and its surrounding hills devoted to banana culture, is 
looked upon as the coming country for the agriculturist 
in the Havana region. 

A stop-over at San Antonio de los Banos, will show 
one of the wonders of Cuba, in the " disappearing river " 
there, one of a system of underground streams peculiar 
to this region. The underground river of San Antonio 
not only flows through a cave adorned with stalactites 
and stalagmites, but it is famous for containing some 
remarkable blind fishes, which have been made the subject 
of a monograph by a learned professor of the United 
States Fish Commission, The Cuban naturalist, Poey, 



IN CUBA'S CAPITAL 71 

whose great work on Cuban fishes is yet in manuscript, 
first called attention to the number and peculiarities of 
the blind cave-fishes of the island, and he mentioned many 
places in which they were to be found. 

There is no system near Havana that takes one to so 
many points of interest as the " United Railways," with 
its very accessible station right in the center of the city. 
Villanueva, it is called, after the Conde de Villa Nueva, 
whose name is on the statue of " La India " in the Parque 
Colon. Taking train here amidst the most prosaic sur- 
roundings, in a few hours one is whisked through the 
■commonplace, the picturesque, and the romantic, in mar- 
velous succession. This is in allusion to the route to 
Batabano and the Isle of Pines, both of which are reached 
over the rails of the United Railways, the former in an 
hour and a half from Havana, in which time one has been 
taken right across the island and introduced to the scenery 
of an entirely different world from that of the north 
coast. 

Batabano stands on stilts, and is a sponge-fishing place, 
once the chosen site for Cuba's capital itself. Steamers 
sail thence for all ports on the south coast : for Cienfuegos, 
for Santiago de Cuba, going eastward ; and for Pinar 
del Rio points, going westward. But the most interesting 
spot reached from Batabano is that land of romance and 
mystery, the Isle of Pines, situated about sixty miles to 
the south. Twice a week, on Sunday and Thursday, a 
light-draught steamer makes connection at Batabano with 
the morning express trains from Villanueva. 

That is, the Isle of Pines has been considered a land of 
mystery until quite recently ; but the pushing Americans, 
who have invested more than a million dollars there 
already, have done much to dispel the air of romanticism, 



72 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

in their endeavors to show that the soil of the island con- 
tains vast resources in the way of latent riches. While 
there are fine marble quarries in the island, the main 
dependence of the settlers, the Americanos say, will be 
agriculture. Hitherto, the island has been possessed by a 
few unambitious and unenergetic Cubans, who lived in 
mud or straw huts, content with their ownership of 
potential millions, perfectly satisfied with their holdings, 
and who were very much alarmed when their aggressive 
neighbors from the North came down and offered them 
more for their properties than they had believed they 
would be worth. 



IV 

THE RAILROAD BETWEEN HAVANA AND 
SANTIAGO 

The various systems combined in the great united line, 
Havana-Santiago — Scenery along the way — Mud-splashed 
natives and bohios — The sugar section of Cuba — Strange 
trees and shrubs — The Cuban and his crooked stick — 
Attractions of Matanzas, the Yumuri valley and caves of 
Bellamar — Railroads that cross the island — Cities of the 
south coast — the " Cuban Saratoga " and Santa Clara — 
Possibilities for the American colonizer — Ciego de Avila 
and the " impregnable " trocha — Blockhouses that were of 
no avail — A vast cattle country — Bayamo, where President 
Palma was born — The "Gardens of the Queen " — The 
oldest railway in Spanish dominions — Camagiiey or Puerto 
Principe, an old city with a new lease of life — Its big hotel 
and salubrious atmosphere — Through the forest lands, 
where mahogany and cedar abound — Alto Cedro and the Bay 
of Nipe — A tropical wilderness and vegetal paradise. 

THE railroad between Havana and Santiago 
affords one of the grandest rides in the world. 
The distance between the two points is 540 
miles, or 869 kilometers, and is covered in twenty- 
five hours, on a time-table that keeps the schedule to 
the minute. By the perfect cooperation of the various 
systems composing the great united line along the back- 
bone of Cuba, and which was only completed in 1902, by 
the construction of the " Cuba Railway," excellent and 
punctual service Is afforded from one end of the island 
to the other. 

73 



74 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Exactly at 9 P. M., every day in the week, a train 
pulls out of the Villanueva station at Havana composed 
of first- and third-class day coaches, mail and express 
cars, and a through " sleeper," to which after daylight an 
observation car is added. At 6 A. M., a similar train 
leaves Santiago, going westward, so that by taking the 
route both ways all the glorious scenery of the island is 
revealed to the traveler — and it is a revelation — nothing 
of importance should be missed. 

By these through trains, however, one of the most 
important places along the line is reached at a very bad 
time for observation, and that is Matanzas, at which, 
going one way, the traveler arrives about midnight, and 
going the other at four in the morning. This difficulty 
may be obviated, if one be starting from Havana, by tak- 
ing in advance the excursion offered by the United Rail- 
ways Line, giving an all-day trip, Havana-Matanzas- 
Havana, for eleven dollars, including breakfast or lunch 
at Matanzas, volantes to the Valley of Yumuri and the 
caves of Bellamar — all the attractions, in fact, or one 
may stop over a day at Matanzas, where enough of in- 
terest will be found to fill it pretty well. 

The distance from Havana to Matanzas is about sixty 
miles, and the time by rail two or three hours. The 
scenery en route is typical of the western and central parts 
of Cuba, being chiefly of cane-fields interspersed with 
smaller farms or abandoned tracts lying fallow from lack 
of means to cultivate. Everywhere you will see the 
great pearl-gray -columns of the royal palm, with their 
coronals of verdure, in groups, in long, straight rows 
forming avenues and boundary-lines, and always orna- 
mental. There will also be bunches of bamboos, feathery- 
foliaged, like tufts of plumes, their lance-like culms clash- 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 75 

ing together in the wind and their willow-like leaves 
rustling. They generally indicate the vicinage of water, 
though, like the palms, they grow in all sorts of places 
except in the highest hills or mountains. 

Now and then you see a great tobacco barn, five or ten 
times as large as the dwelling alongside it, though both 
are built of palm, as picturesque and as appropriate to 
the landscape as structures made by man can be. The 
thatched hut, as perhaps the reader knows, was derived 
from the aboriginal inhabitants of Cuba, who were dis- 
covered living in the same kind of bohios as we see to-day 
all over, the island. Traveling eastward, the vast tobacco 
barns gradually disappear, to give way to another type of 
building more modern and expensive — the ingenio, or 
sugar-mill. Eastward and westward from Havana prov- 
ince lies the vast sugar-cane region of Cuba, stretching 
from coast to coast and becoming more and more in evi- 
dence as we proceed. Like immense fields of maize or 
Indian corn, the tracts of golden-green cane, miles in 
extent, are only infrequently dotted with the mills where 
the cane is crushed and its juice reduced to saccharine 
crystals. Access to the sugar-mills is generally easy, 
provided one can find the time and opportunity; and the 
chances are that the traveler has already visited one of the 
typical structures, such as the " Toledo," not far from 
Havana and Marianao, where an admission fee is 
charged. The owners of the great properties in Cuba 
are nothing if not thrifty, and are generally not above 
taking, even demanding, a fee for inspecting their works. 
This is Spanish " thrift," as practiced by the people who 
are so loud in denouncing the acquisitiveness of the 
invading " Yankees." 

The cane-fields appear to occupy a great proportion of 



76 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the total area of Cuba ; but late statistics appear to show 
that the aggregate acreage devoted to sugar-cane is only 
about one-sixtieth of the grand total of 28,000,000 
acres. 

You would think, also, when in Havana, that the cul- 
ture of tobacco is the chief occupation of the Cuban agri- 
culturist. As a great favor, one of the princely tobac- 
conists will allow you to go over his factory, where hun- 
dreds of men are employed in rolling and pasting the 
" weed " ; and, though the same process may be seen in 
Key West and Tampa, even in New York, there are 
tourists who go into ecstasies over the sight. Just why, 
it is impossible to say ; but probably because they think 
it the proper thing to do. Neither cigar nor cigarette- 
making is an attractive process ; tobacco culture is not a 
novel occupation, though demanding skill and experi- 
ence ; and too much has been made of both, hitherto, in 
descriptions of Cuba and her resources. 

It will not be the Vuelta Aba jo region with its fields of 
tobacco, nor the great central section with its vaster fields 
of sugar-cane, that will engage the attention of the incom- 
ing Americans with their capital — whether large or small 
in amount — but the lands that can be made to produce 
coffee and cacao, pineapples and citrus fruits, and even 
" garden truck " for northern markets. Tobacco is 
grown on the insignificant total of one hundred thousand 
acres ; but it has been the means of enriching a good 
many. Not so many, however, that they cannot be 
formed into a " tfust " that will eventually control the 
whole supply and yet further enhance the values of cigars 
that are already priced far beyond their worth, 

Nearing Matanzas, we are getting well out of the 
tobacco section and into the region of waving cane. 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 77 

Aside from the royal palms, the occasional ceiba or silk- 
cotton trees are the most conspicuous, with their massive 
trunks, broad-spreading limbs, and far-extending roots 
swelling- into the parent trunks like the buttresses to a 
Gothic cathedral. Masses of tropical trees are seen, also, 
such as the mango, the mamey, the nispero, and a dozen 
others, but generally so densely grouped that their foliage 
and fruits can hardly be distinguished. Now and then 
abandoned fields covered with guavas, from the fruit of 
which the delicious pastas and jellies are made, stretch 
alongside the railroad tracks. 

The huts of the natives are not so frequently seen as 
farther along the line, beyond the sugar-producing prov- 
inces, for the cane-culture crowds them out ; but some of 
them are attractively embowered amid the shining leaves 
of citrus trees, more often shaded by the dome-shaped 
crowns of dark-green mangos. The ordinary railroad 
station, as well as the. beginning of a town, in Cuba, is 
usually a horror of unattractiveness, despite the endeavors 
of the railroad men to build it well originally and to keep 
it up to the mark subsequently. Crowded about it will 
be a host of ox-carts to which the beasts are yoked by the 
horns ; occasionally a cumbersome volante, mud-plastered 
from wrestling with the roads of the country ; and always 
a crowd of loafers in cotton shirts and flowing pantaloons ; 
hatless, some of them, and also shoeless. 

Right in sight of the car windows may be seen a wit- 
less Cuban furrowing the land with a crooked stick, using 
this primitive implement of the times of Noah and Abra- 
ham in preference to the best plow that might be offered 
him. The Cuban is a fool, of course ; but he won't 
believe you if you tell him so, although you know it. His 
great-great-grandfather plowed with a crooked stick, 



78 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

hitched by a pole to the horns of his oxen, and why should 
he not do the same ? 

Besides, the Yankee plow, he is ever ready to tell you, 
digs too deep a hole in the earth — turns up the sub-soil, 
which the great God never intended should be disturbed. 
Then again, the Yankee plow costs too much for a poor 
Cuban ; though this argument is invalidated by the fact 
that the rich ones use the crooked stick — or allow it to be 
used on their plantations — when they can well afford the 
finer implement. 

But if we linger too long by the wayside commenting 
upon Cuban peculiarities, we shall not reach Matanzas 
in time for breakfast. There is scant soil for any kind of 
cultivation in the immediate vicinity of Matanzas ; but 
that, of course, will not concern the tourist, who cares 
more for what he can see than for the latent possibilities 
of the earth. This city of about 45,000 inhabitants lies 
curled around a beautiful bay which is deep enough for 
good-sized steamers to enter, and is situated upon and 
amid some swelling hills. Its architecture is the Ameri- 
canized Hispano-Moriscan, typical of the better portions 
of Cuba's cities, and some of the dwellings are imposing, 
especially out at Versailles suburb and along the road 
from the plaza to the caves of^Bellamar. Matanzas has 
its central square or plaza, on one side of which is the 
governor's palace, on another the post-office, and orl 
another still a very nice hotel, the best in the place. 

But it is not for the sake of its attractions per se that 
we have come to Matanzas. Were it not for the fact that 
Nature has bestowed two great gifts upon this region, it 
is doubtful if anyone would stop over for a glimpse of 
the city. One such gift were enough to cause travelers 
to make pilgrimages here, and that is the near valley of 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 79 

the Yumuri, which no less an authority than Humboldt 
pronounced the most beautiful in the world. Hum- 
boldt was prone to indulge in superlatives ; but in this 
case he may not have gone far astray, for the vale of 
Yumuri is certainly an entrancing spot. 

There are two points from which the Yumuri may be 
viewed, the nearest to Matanzas, about; two miles, being 
the hill and chapel of Montserrat. You may go thither 
on foot, by coche, or by volante, the last-named means of 
conveyance being generally chosen because of its novelty 
— not for its comfort. There are not many volantes 
left in Cuba that are available to the general tourist, and 
perhaps it may be as well to charter one of these craft on 
this occasion, for another may not offer. They " come 
high," and they are swung high, on huge leather springs 
suspended between wheels of vast diameter, at least eight 
feet across. 

In going to view the Yumuri from the cumbres, farther 
from the city than Montserrat, the volantes are almost a 
necessity, the road is so rough and the holes in it so deep. 
However, whether on foot, by coche, or by volante, by all 
means go to see the beautiful Yumuri, a vale sunken five 
or six hundred feet between encircling hills, its rolling 
surface dotted with royal palms, and rounded knolls 
forming the foot-hills to this Royal Plain in minia- 
ture. A small stream meanders through the valley, 
which breaks between almost vertical clififs and flows 
amidst the city, with the river San Juan dividing Matan- 
zas into three parts, known as Versailles, Pueblo Vie jo, 
and Nuevo. 

You look down upon the Yumuri from Montserrat 
as into a vast bowl or crater from its brim, and behold 
its palm-dotted surface diversified with cocoas, cacaos. 



8o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

almond trees, and small plantations of coffee and sugar- 
cane. Not many houses show themselves, and there 
are comparatively few huts, on the various spurs from 
the inclosing hillside. It is most assuredly a beautiful 
retreat to look upon; but I fancy life must get rather 
monotonous within it, especially in the rainy season, 
when it would be far easier to slide down the hillsides 
over the slippery soil than to climb to their crests and 
view the world outside. 

Then there are the caves of Bellamar. They may have 
existed as long as Yumuri ; but they have not been known 
to man so long, having been discovered accidentally less 
than fifty years ago, by a Chinese laborer who lost a 
crowbar down a hole. When he went to look for it he 
found an opening into one of the most beautiful caverns 
on earth. 

The main chamber is estimated at about 200 feet long 
by 70 wide, says a writer of note, " and while it far sur- 
passes in richness and splendor the temple of the sam* 
name in the Mammoth Cave, it does not equal it in size 
or solemn grandeur." The caves of Bellamar are suffi- 
ciently extensive to fatigue one in exploring them thor- 
oughly, as I can testify, having been through them, as 
well as through Kentucky's Mammoth Cave. There is 
no comparison between the two, the one being vast and 
gloomy; the other, the Cuban Bellamar, being rich and 
sparkling in stalactitic and stalagmitic formations, in laby- 
rinthine passages through rows of crystal colonnades, 
where the only sound is that of dripping water making 
music in the darkness. There is a " fat man's misery " 
in the Bellamar, where the passage through is so narrow^ 
that not everyone can make it, and the descents into the 
deeps are sharp, while the bridged spaces across chasms 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 8i 

and along the brinks of steeps are sufficiently perilous to 
caus€ a shudder. The cave has been followed three miles 
and to a depth of five hundred feet, in the white and 
sparkling limestone. 

Returning to the main line and our journey from Ha- 
vana to Santiago, mention should be made, in passing, of 
a small town a little off the route of travel, and about two 
hours distant from Matanzas, known as Madruga, the 
" Cuban Saratoga," which is a natural sanatorium, being 
filled with springs impregnated with iron, sulphur, 
potassa, and magnesia, efficacious in many diseases. Its 
name is a sadly suggestive one in Cuba, being associated 
with some fierce fighting during the revolution, when the 
dead and wounded of the Spaniards, repulsed in their 
attacks upon the patriots who were intrenched on a 
lofty hill, were brought into the town by scores. 

Had you taken the night train from Havana, after re- 
freshing slumber aboard the " sleeper " you would have 
awakened about six the next morning at the station of 
Santa Clara, where coffee is served and a few minutes are 
allowed for refreshments of the cruder sort. The town 
or city of Santa Clara, so long famous for the beauty of 
its women and the salubrity of its airs, is at a little dis- 
tance from the station, and a special trip must be made to 
visit it. Founded in 1689, it is one of the older cities 
of the interior, and stands in the center of a region of 
hill and plain diversified with sugar plantations, from the 
wealth of which it draws the substance of its living. 

Hills and mountains play at hide and seek, more or 
less distant from the line of the railway, and there are 
numerous examples of those rounded elevations, some of 
them capped with palm trees, that are yet more numer- 
ous in the Santiago province. Here, now, there is an 



82 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

aspect of cultivation that seems to presage the possibiHty 
of land for the colonist and settler, for the sugar-cane no 
longer monopolizes the territory, but it is less given over 
to any one kind of culture. The uplands become more 
open, with valleys of verdure interspersed, but there is a 
vast quantity of apparently sterile land as the geographi- 
cal center of the island is reached, at or about Ciego de 
Avila, which is the narrowest part of Cuba east of Matan- 
zas. It is not so sterile, the old settlers tell me, as it seems 
to be, being merely grown up to " bush " and lacking the 
necessary cultivation to make it " blossom as the rose." 

At Ciego de Avila one sees substantial reminders of the 
late revolution, in the numerous watch-towers that cross 
the country at this point. They are still in a good state of 
preservation, each one being about twenty feet square, 
with an entrance-way a dozen feet from the ground, the 
lower part solidly built of masonry, and the upper consist- 
ing of a square tower sheathed with corrugated iron. The 
stupendous, yet worse than wasted, labor performed by 
the Spaniards during the war may be appreciated from 
the fact that they cleared a space a kilometer in width 
directly across the island, a distance of nearly fifty miles, 
from coast to coast, and erected 210 substantial block- 
houses, each one of which was occupied by its guard, 
equipped with a powerful electric light and in telephonic 
communication wnth every other, and the whole connected 
by an all but impassable entanglement of barbed wire. I 
say " all but impassable," for the Cubans laughed at this 
" impregnable trocha " of their enemies, and whenever 
they felt like doing so cut their way through it and passed 
quite freely from one side to the other. 

But there, to-day, exists the kilometer-wide space 
cleared by the Spaniards, reaching from sea to sea, run- 




Spanish Block House, Ciego de Avila. 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 83 

ning in a north-south direction, and as it was divested of 
every bush and shrub big enough to conceal a lurking 
Cuban, it forms a magnificent body of land ready for cul- 
tivation. The owners and squatters have merely to put 
in the plow and turn over the fertile soil, and they can 
avail themselves of block-houses and barracks for 
dwellings and cattle-sheds. A primitive railroad runs 
alongside the trocha (rather, perhaps, it should be said 
that the trocha was projected to follow the railroad) 
from Jucaro on the south coast to San Fernando on the 
north, and thus the Spaniards had a triple line of de- 
fense; despite which, however, the Cubans defied them 
at every point and skipped about pretty much as they 
pleased. Down the line a few miles from Ciego de Avila 
an American colony has been started, at Ceballos, where 
there are already hundreds of acres under cultivation. 

The soil and scenery are of similar character all the 
way to Puerto Principe, or Camagiiey, which is 343 miles 
from Havana and 200 from Santiago. The great plains 
are covered with the rankly-growing Parana and Guinea 
grass, in some fields of which the sleek and shining cattle 
may be seen feeding, with this rich fodder meeting above 
their backs. This is undoubtedly the land for cattle rais- 
ing, where the grass grows the year round, where the 
animals need no shelter, and where running streams are 
frequent enough for watering them without recourse to 
artificial means. 

Puerto Principe, to which the railroad builders have 
restored its ancient Indian name of Camagiiey, is the most 
important city between Matanzas and Santiago, with 
more than forty thousand people, and possessing a high 
and healthy location. Since the Cuba railway reached it 
Camagiiey has taken a new lease of life. It was ever a 



84 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

city with a past, living nobody knew how, but probably 
on the profits of cattle-raising on the adjoining plains. Its 
sole connection with the outside world (aside from that 
apology for a trail, the so-called camino real, or royal 
road) was by means of a railway 45 miles in length to the 
port of Nuevitas. This line has the reputation of being 
the first ever constructed within Spanish dominions ; and 
there is a locomotive running on it which has been in 
service for more than sixty years, and is still doing 
active duty ; though it was in the repair-shop at the time 
of my visit. 

One would hardly believe that Puerto Principe could 
have been sacked by' pirates, being so far inland ; yet it 
once suffered terribly at the hands of ruthless Morgan 
and his men, in 1665, who marched hither from the south 
coast, attacked the forts, captured them, and shut up all 
the inhabitants in the churches, where most of them 
starved, or were tortured to death by the fiends from the 
coast. The pirates secured a great amount of plunder, 
including not only gold and jewels, but five hvmdred 
cattle. Some of the old churches in which the unfor- 
tunate people were confined are still standing, and are 
vastly interesting, their walls massive, buttressed, and 
their interiors adorned with ancient paintings. 

Since the completion of the Cuba railroad and the re- 
moval to this city of the general offices of the company. 
Camagiiey has taken a new appearance. It is still a city 
more of the past than of the present, typically and archai- 
cally Spanish in its architecture, with its plaza, cathedral, 
quaint old churches and monasteries, its dwellings with 
massive walls and grated windows. Of itself, it might not 
be considered attractive enough to draw hither the hosts 
of tourists for whom the railway company has provided 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 85 

accommodations in its new and vast hotel, which was 
once a barrack capable of quartering two thousand men. 

This immense building has been renovated and made 
into a perfectly palatial edifice. It has suites of rooms 
with all sorts of baths attached, courts and gardens, de- 
tached buildings for the cuisine, with pillared corridors 
connecting with the main structure, and a roof-garden 
from which an extensive view is open in every direction 
of Camagiiey's surrounding plains. Of itself, I have said, 
modest Puerto Principe would not consider itself suffi- 
ciently attractive to win hither the money-scattering tour- 
ists ; but with the great hotel as an adjunct, and with the 
salubrious atmosphere of its high plains, lying mid-seas 
and healthful to a surpassing degree, there is a good pros- 
pect for it to become a winter resort in the near future. 

Beyond Camagiiey, fifty miles' traveling brings us to 
the eastern border of Puerto Principe province, in the 
center of which its chief city is located, and seventy-five 
miles distant is Victoria de las Tunas, where the train 
halts twenty minutes for another of those delicious meals 
which the " Cuba " caterer knows so well how to serve. 
There is scant time to look about, but from the observa- 
tion-car we have obtained views all along the road that 
form a continuous panorama of tropical scenery, increas- 
ingly profuse in the strange and varied forms of vegeta- 
tion so uncommon to northern eyes. 

The forest trees are now crowding upon the rails, from 
which they have hitherto been held back by the ax, and 
only at the occasional openings in the woods, by courtesy 
called stations, do we see any extensive areas of field or 
plain. And at every station there are big piles of timber, 
rough-hewn by the axmen in the forest, huge logs of 
precious cedar and mahogany, fifty and sixty feet in 



86 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

length and two feet through, perhaps exceeding these 
dimensions. There are, also, native ox-carts laden with 
these valuable woods, and the natives themselves in num- 
bers, engaged in bringing in great logs from the forest, 
the mahogany-producing section of which is becoming 
more and more difficult to reach, and fast receding to the 
mountains. After viewing the millions of feet piled up 
at the stations in Santiago province and loaded on the 
cars, it is easy to understand that there is, or may be, a 
glut in the cedar and mahogany market. And yet, 
through the mysterious workings of the " trusts," the 
price of furniture made from the latter wood does not 
decrease correspondingly with cost of material ! 

Most of the stations are names merely, with now and 
then two or three open-work bohios occupied by the cus- 
tomary Cubans with muddy complexions and mud- 
bespattered garments — such as they are. But when these 
forests are cleared and the daylight let into the openings, 
where the rich humus is so deep as to be inexhaustible, 
there will in all probability be houses enough around the 
stations. At present, the prospect is far from encour- 
aging, except in its immensity of opportunity for the right 
man who shall drop into the right place, in this virgin 
spot of Cuba. It is more than a " spot," too, being per- 
haps a hundred miles long, lying adjacent to the railroad 
and extending back for miles and miles. 

Just before dark we reach the station of Cacocum, 
which is of importance chiefly on account of its stage 
connection with the town of Holguin, whence there is a 
railroad to the port of Gibara on the north coast. Why 
nobody completes the few miles necessary to make an 
all-rail line between these two important points, is a 
Cuban conundrum which everybody seems to have " given 



• BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 87 

up." The only means of conveyance at present are a few 
shaky stages, or fat-bodied old volantes, which may be 
seen lying alongside the platform like stranded porpoises. 

In the gathering gloom, at the next flag station beyond 
Cacocum, a clearing in the forest is visible, where an 
enterprising American has begun operations, with a saw- 
mill and improved machinery, looking toward utilizing the 
native products, especially the timber and cabinet woods. 
Lewiston is the name of the " siding " where fwo hundred 
acres of forest trees have already been removed, and the 
" Cuban Products Company, Limited," the title of the firm 
which owns 70,000 acres of land here in one large tract, 
a portion of which has been stocked with cattle. 

Darkness has entirely enveloped us by the time Alto 
Cedro is reached, and we consider this as a misfortune, for 
Alto Cedro is destined to become one of the most im- 
portant points along the line, although at present con- 
sisting chiefly of a few huts, a station building, and a 
general store. For, here the main west-east line diverges 
southward, while a northerly spur is being constructed to 
Nipe Bay, which is known as the finest natural port in 
Cuba. 

The name " Alto Cedro," the Tall Cedar, gives a hint of 
the forestal character in this region where the big trees 
prevail, and where the really tropical province of San- 
tiago holds promise of vegetal wonders. This spot is 
right in its very center, north-south, east-west, and as the 
road strikes southwardly to the coast it plunges into a 
perfect wilderness of wonders belonging to the vegetable 
kingdom. As it crosses the headwaters of the Cauto and 
its tributaries, great trees crowd upon the track, as they 
did a hundred miles further back ; but here they display, 
if possible, a greater wealth of epiphytic and parasitic 



88 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

plants, plastered upon their branches and affixed to their 
vast trunks. 

It seemed to me, many miles back on the road, that I 
had seen nearly all the wild orchids in the world sitting 
astride the limbs of the forest trees or hanging from their 
branches, but here they quite bewildered me with their 
variety and profusion. There were great air-plants, some 
with spikes of blossoms, some with great display of 
leaves ; some were attached to the lianas which draped 
every tree, some affixed to the rough bark, some again 
suspended in mid-air to a slender " lialine," or cordage- 
like vine that came down from somewhere up above, from 
out the canopy of verdure — and there it swung, an object 
of exceeding beauty, yet only one of thousands, and per- 
haps millions, in that forest pierced by the parallel rails 
which reached from somewhere to somewhere, but here 
were apparently drifting off into nowhere. 

The silk-cottons were the grandest, as they towered 
above all other trees of the lowlands, everywhere, and the 
burdens they bore of parasites and epiphytes were com- 
mensurate with their vast bulk. They are, perhaps, the 
only large trees which that piratical parasite, the " wild 
fig," dares not attack, probably on account of their bulky 
bole and extensive buttresses. 

All the trees were woven together by lianas and 
be j II cos, the vines and bush-ropes, which seemed of in- 
terminable length, and which were comparable only to 
the rigging of a^ Brobdignagian ship, in their entirety. 
They lined the lengths of forest aisles, they formed a 
ligneous lattice-work beside the track, which it almost 
seemed necessary for the engineer to cut with a machete 
ere he could force the engine through. 

The scene changes at or about Moron, or Dos Caminos, 







Co 



Co 



o 

-Si 



BETWEEN HAVANA AND SANTIAGO 89 

where different, but equally beautiful effects are presented 
by nature subdued and cultivated. After passing through 
a tropical wilderness, we suddenly emerge into a veritable 
paradise, so far as its vegetal products are concerned. 
We are now in a region of rounded hills, each hill or 
knoll crowned with a group of palms, or a single tree 
with soft and feathery foliage outlined against the sky. 
Sometimes the hills have palm-thatched bohios perched 
upon them, and their slopes covered with coffee trees, 
cacaos^ mangos, oranges, and limes. The products of 
these Hesperian gardens are brought to the stations for 
sale, as at Cristo, where the primitive stalls are full of 
gleaming fruits of every hue and flavor. And thus it is, 
all the way to Santiago : the track bordered with fruit 
trees, the air filled with fragrance, so that you may know 
what you are passing through, even though it be night. 



V 

THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND AS HE IS 

The Cnhano and his costume — Why he wears a dirt-color gar- 
ment — As to his ancestry — What the Spaniards did to the 
Indians — A Cuban on the Cubans — Why the islanders do 
not indulge in fire-water — Their temperance and honesty — 
Common people kind and courteous — Where blood is thicker 
than water — The commercial instinct of the Spaniards — 
Not hospitably inclined — Hard-headed and hard-hearted — 
An Asturian custom — The Asturians in Cuba — Upper 
classes cold and calculating — The author entertained in a 
bohio — An erstwhile revolutionist — Hov/ the money sharks 
are depriving the patriots of their pensions — Political agita- 
tion — Don Tomas and General Maximo Gomez — Cuba's 
greatest Cuban not a native — Brief biography of President 
Palma — The Cuban not incurably lazy — But he will not 
change his costumbres — He plows with a stick and tortures 
his oxen — The Spanish-American innately cruel — An 
encounter with some natives — The seiiorita and her cigar- 
ette — Something about the Cuhana — Society, schools, and 
churches — The feeling of security in Cuba — Contrasted 
with Mexico — Brigands, policemen, and rural guards — Few 
locks on doors of country houses — Bull-fights banished and 
cock-fights " on the sly," only. 

THE subject for vivisection in this chapter is the 
Cuban. Perhaps I used the term vivisection 
inadvertently, for that imphes the cutting up 
of something alive, when there are people who declare 
that the Cuban does not come under that category. 
He has practically been dead a long time, they say, but 
his friends have forgotten to bury him. That is a dis- 

90 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 91 

torted view, however, due to prejudice, putting which 
aside, I say, the Cuban is still very much alive — for a 
corpse. 

The first one of my acquaintance I met nearly a quarter 
of a century ago, and I can picture him yet, as he appeared 
to my astonished vision clad in flowing pantalones — which 
are a sort of a cross between " pants," trousers, and a 
petticoat — a shirt once white, but at that time the color of 
his native soil, and worn outside his nether garments, the 
latter held up by a leather belt, into which was thrust a 
machete, or Spanish cutlass. 

His • feet, otherwise bare, were stuck into Moorish 
alpargatas, or hempen sandals, which were held in place 
by- a thong between the big toe and the one next to it on 
each foot. Oh his head was a tattered sombrero, and in 
his mouth the inevitable and deadly cigarette. That is, 
deadly to anybody save Cubans or Mexicans; but they 
are " proof." 

Nearly a quarter-century elapsed, as intimated, between 
my first visit to Cuba and my last ; but this last time I saw 
the same old Cuban, puffing the same sort of cigarette, 
and wearing, apparently, that same old shirt. Now, I do 
not mean to say that the Cuban never dons a clean caniisa, 
as he calls it; for I have seen it white and shining, 
starched as stiff as a board, and standing out all round 
him like the old-fashioned crinoline our mothers used to 
wear. But — and it seems a curious circumstance — the 
every-day apparel of the Cuhano, especially of the paisano, 
or countryman, though perhaps originally white, is gen- 
erally dirt color. 

I never ventured to inquire why this was thus, but 
have drawn the conclusion from my own inner con- 
sciousness — as the Dutchman drew the elephant — that it 



92 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

came from his many years of fighting the Spaniards. 
That is, Hke certain birds and four-footed animals, 
which change their feathers or fur from brown in the 
summer to white in the winter, and vice versa, he has 
instinctively adopted the dirt-color arrangement as a 
sort of " protective coloration" scheme. Being then of 
" the earth earthy," he was rendered less conspicuous 
to the Spaniard in war-time ; and now that peace reigns 
in Cuba, he either cannot, or cares not to, get rid of 
the habit. 

Perhaps he doesn't want to ; for in a land where the 
soil is mostly a red and tenacious clay, which stains 
everything with which it comes in contact, the incen- 
tives to cleanliness are not overwhelmingly abun- 
dant. We will give the Cuban the benefit of the doubt, 
and admit that while the average paisano might appear 
cleaner than he is, and assuredly can't look dirtier, it 
may be altogether the fault of the climate — as Biddy 
the cook declared when she burned the steak. 

As to the ancestry of the Ctihano, let me remark that 
he is a composite reproduction of Spaniard, Indian, and 
African, with a complexion depending upon the racial 
predominance of white, red, or black man amongst his 
progenitors. There are still white men in Cuba, and 
there are also many black men, with every gradation 
between them ; there are no longer any red, or copper- 
colored individuals, known as Indians. This comes from 
a cheerful habit the Spaniards of the sixteenth cen- 
tury had, of trying their swords on the craniums of the 
Indians almost every morning before breakfast. Orig- 
inally there were several hundred aborigines in Cuba; 
but when the Spaniards got through with them there 
were not enough to populate a vacant lot. 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 93 

" Upon these Lambes so meek, so qualified and endued 
of their Maker," (wrote Las Casas, according to 
" Purchas his Pilgrims," published 1625) "entered the 
Spaniards, as Wolves, as Lyons, as Tygers, most cruel, 
of long time famished, and did naught else than tear 
them in pieces, kill them, martyr them, and torment 
them, by strange sort of cruelties neither seen nor read, 
nor heard of the like ; so far forth that of above three 
millions of Souls that were in the isle of Hispaniola — and 
that we have seen — there are not now above two hundred 
Natives of the Country left. . . . 

" The cause why the Spanish have destroyed such an 
infinite number of Souls hath been only their desire to 
get Gold and to enrich themselves in a short time ; or, 
to say in a wOrd, their Avarice and Ambition. And by 
this means have died so many Millions, without Faith 
and without Sacrament. 

" Further note here, that in whatever Part of the Indies 
the Spanish have come, they have enormously exercised 
against the Indians, these innocent Peoples, the cruelties 
aforesaid, and invented day by day new Torments, huger 
and monstrouser; wherefore God also gave them over 
to fall headlong down with a more extream Downfall, 
into a reprobate sense." 

What the Spaniards did in Hispaniola, or Santo 
Domingo, they also did in Cuba, with the result as stated 
above. The Indians are gone ; Spanish excesses have 
been restrained ; but Spanish character is the same as 
it was three hundred years ago. 

*' The Cuban," says a native writer, " is a descendant of 
the Spanish colonist that came to the island with Colum- 
bus, and of the female Indians that were in Cuba when 
discovered. The negro and mulatto born in the island 



94 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

is also called Cuban, but for the mere fact of being born 
here ; the mulatto is a mixture of the white man and the 
negress. So the real Cuban is a descendant of the 
Spanish colonist and the female Indian." 

It is well to be accurately informed at the outset; but 
we will extend the term, Cuban, to include all residents 
of the island, whether boasting sanguineous connection 
(on the female side) with the long-extinct aborigines, 
or derived by direct importation from Spain, the " mother 
country " of both Don and donkey. 

The aim of this roundabout ramble into the field of 
history is to show how the Cuban came by his vices and 
his virtues — such as he has. The aboriginal inhabitants 
were gentle and refined — for savages — and very abstemi- 
ous. Strange to say, the Spaniards were also abstemious, 
so far as abstention from fire-water is concerned ; but 
the Spaniard of history has established a record for 
indulgence in carnal vices second to none other in the 
world. These he indulged at the expense of, first, the 
Indians, then the Negroes, then the native Cubans of 
whatever complexion. 

Hence, racially speaking, the Cuban comes naturally 
enough by his instincts of cruelty ; but through inheri- 
tance from neither one race nor the other is he inclined to 
indulge in strong drink. 

Perhaps the noteworthy lack of crime in the island 
is owing to the temperance of the islanders. In a local 
guide to Havana, written and published by a native, I 
read : " The Cuban is not given to the strong drinks. 
It is very seldom that a drunk man is seen in Havana" ; 
and I may add, or anywhere else, as ,to that matter. I 
have been in every one of the six provinces of Cuba, 
beginning at Pinar del Rio and ending at Santiago, 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 95 

reversing my journey as far as Camagiiey and Niie vitas, 
and have yet to see a Cuban under the influence of 
Hquor. I may have seen some drunken men on previous 
visits; but have no recollection of the fact. 

It may have been owing to their " capacity," for most 
assuredly the Cubans do imbibe largely of light wines, 
chiefly claret of the Spanish variety ; or it may have been 
because the kind of liquor they drink does not readily 
intoxicate. One might, in fact, drink a bucketful of the 
vino corriente, the vin ordinaire imported from 
Spain, without getting even " half-seas over." It is on 
every table of the Spanish restaurants, and is almost as 
free as water; but, whether it be owing to the kind of 
liquor the Cuban is prone to imbibe, or to his superior 
" capacity," the fact remains that he rarely gets drunk. 

Neither is the native, so far as I have been able to 
observe, any more given to dishonesty than to drunken- 
ness. With the sole exception of the cabmen (who are 
generally considered as an exempt class all over the 
world )^ the Cubans practice few if any of those despic- 
able tricks by which the traveler is forced to give up 
his change, loose and otherwise. Make a bargain with 
any of them (cabmen and drivers excepted), and they 
will generally stick to the agreement; or if they back 
out, will do so from some motive other than pecuniary. 

It is remarkable that, operating upon such diverse 
elements as the Indian races of America and the imported 
Africans, the Spaniards of the old days should have 
evolved a mixed people more or less homogeneous. 
The Spanish characteristics have been ineffaceably 
stamped upon these people, and it is quite natural that 
the natives should look toward them, rather than toward 
the Anglo-Saxons from the States. 



95 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

" Blood is thicker than water '" holds good here, and 
this is why, after having suffered so terribly from Span- 
ish atrocities, the Cubans not only tolerate the Spaniards, 
but hug them to their hearts. The Spaniards still con- 
trol all the great business affairs of the country ; the 
streets of the capital are full of Catalan and Asturian 
draymen, and the cafes of Andalusian waiters. It must 
be that the Cuban character is long-suffering, if not 
pusillanimous, when Cubans allow themselves to be 
overridden (as they are) by the insolent Spaniards. 

The latter have the business faculty developed to an 
extraordinary degree, while the Cubans in general do 
not possess it at all. As bull-fights are now banished 
the island and cock-fights prohibited and indulged 
in only " on the sly," the bloodthirsty instincts of the 
Spaniards are now turned into another channel.* They 
are still after their pound of flesh, and if blood flows 
incidentally to the getting of it, so much the more to their 
liking. The Spaniards in America always were, and 
probably always will be, keen in the pursuit of the 
" almighty dollar." After they had sucked, vampire- 
like, the last drop of blood from aboriginal veins, they 
turned to exploiting the native resources of the regions 
they happened to be in, and only as a very last resort 
took up with agriculture — the raising of sugar-cane and 
tobacco. 

At present the Spaniards are commercially supreme 
in Cuba, for while you may " scratch a Turk and find 
a Tartar," you "cannot scratch a Cuban in commerce 
without finding a Spanish Creole beneath the epidermis. 
These Spaniards in Cuba, regarded from an Anglo- 
Saxon view-point, are not by any means hospitably 
inclined. Most of them are of Asturian descent, and 



The CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 97 

yon know the Asturian custom when a male child is 
born : to crack it over the head with a plate. If the 
plate is broken the child is considered the right sort to 
rear; but if it does not break, and the youngster's skull 
is cracked instead, it is held not to be worth the cost of 
rearing. So the hard-headed ones survive, and many 
of them come to Cuba, where they engage in business, 
to the exclusion of the real owners of the island. 

It is significant of the strength of the Asturians in 
Cuba that there is a single society in Havana containing 
more than 14,000 members. It owns its clubhouse in 
the capital, maintains a hospital and a magnificent sana- 
torium in the suburbs, insures the lives of its members 
for a small annual fee, and is altogether one of the 
wealthiest societies of its kind in the world. 

Respecting my remark, that the lack of the hospitable 
trait is apparent at a glance, I recall some experiences 
of my own, in connection with my mission to this island 
in 1891-92, to invite Cuba to participate in the Expo- 
sition of 1893. It was the chief part of my mission 
to secure the appointment of a local commission by the 
captain general, for the purpose of collecting and 
arranging the various exhibits of the island. Four weeks 
passed before this was accomplished, but when the 
captain general had his list published it was seen that 
he had included nearly every man of importance in 
every province. There were thirty-five men in this local 
junta, nearly every man entitled to be called ''' excelen- 
tisimo " including two real marquises, bearing the his- 
toric titles of Balboa and Duquesne. 

There were several of the great cigar manufacturers, 
who produced some famous brands ; yet I have no 
recollection of having been offered a sinsrle cisrar. More 



98 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

than this, though I was for a time their coadjutor, offici- 
ally accredited to their Government, and in a sense 
their guest, not one of those Spaniards seemed to have 
entertained the notion that it would be a graceful act 
to dine me or wine me. They appeared to have 
exhausted their hospitalities when they had assured me 
that their houses and all they contained were mine ; yet 
all the time in desperate fear that I might take them at 
their word. 

Letters of introduction? Yes, barrels of them, so to 
speak ; but, when you have once heard the money-seeking 
Spaniard ask of you, in a cold and calculating voice, on 
the presentation of such a letter, " Well, what do you 
want ? " you are not in eager haste to present another. 

In pleasing contrast to my receptions by the " upper 
classes " in Cuba, as well as in Spain and Mexico, I 
place my invariable experiences with the poorer people. 
It may be the universally leveling and sweetening effect 
of dire poverty, continued through generations, as in 
Spain ; or it may be that where the wants are fewest 
and the aim is humblest, the visitor is not regarded 
as an object of exploitation. 

In one of my rambles I came across the palm-leaf 
bohio of Sefior Don Valentini Betancourt, snuggled 
securely beneath the shade of a great mahogany tree. 
I had taken a long walk in the woods, and the clearing 
in which stood the bohio of Sefior Betancourt was 
separated from the last one by more than two miles. 
The forest was" dense, the trail obscure, the hour late, 
and quite naturally I stopped at the hut for information, 
which was cheerfully given. 

Sefior Betancourt was clad in a ragged shirt, worn 
outside, extremely dirty, as well as expansive pantalones, 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 99 

and his bare feet were thrust into, or rather, perched 
upon rope-soled " alpargatas," kept in place by thongs 
between his toes. A shapeless sombrero topped Sefior 
Betancourt's frowsy locks and completed his attire ; 
though mention is due to the big machete hanging at his 
side like a rude sword, and, of course, the ever present 
cigarette between his lips. 

The roof of the bohio was of palm thatch, the floor 
was of native mud, and skating across the latter were 
numerous ducks and hens, which evidently roosted with 
the family, at night, in the adjoining room, where the 
bamboo -bed was raised about a foot from the floor. 
There was only one bed visible; but several hammocks 
, swung from the rafters, and the roof was otherwise 
adorned with strips of pork and tasajo, or dried beef, 
onions, bananas, and plantains, among which hung a 
hoop of hejuco or native vine, containing a chattering 
parrot. 

Judging from their attitude of smiling expectancy, 
the family were penetrated with extreme admiration of 
their chance guest, and were anxious to do him every 
honor possible. They were not inquisitive, yet they con- 
trived to convey to the stranger a consuming interest in 
his far-distant family, and expressed the hope that next 
time he honored them with a visit he would bring his 
wife and babies with him. 

Sefior Betancourt admitted that he had been a rabid 
revolutionist during the war, and that he had hidden 
out in those very woods around his dwelling for many a 
long and weary month. It wasn't so bad, he said, for 
the Spaniards rarely found him out, and when they did 
all he had to do was to " cut and run for it." His chief 
concern was for his family, which sometimes shared his 



L.ofC. 



loo OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

hiding-places and sometimes ventured home to the hut 
and garden. He had no very poignant grief to express 
over the impossibihty of doing any work, during the 
days of the revolutionary period ; and in fact seemed to 
regard the blessings of freedom as of somewhat doubtful 
value, won and preserved as they were by constant toil. 

Toil and Seiior Betancourt evidently had had a falling 
out, long since ; but he had no grievance against the 
world. Quite the contrary, he believed it was a very 
good sort of world, now that the Spaniards were sup- 
pressed and one could do as he pleased. He would like 
to be allowed to carry a gun ; but as the license, cost $15, 
and there was not much to shoot, after all, it was just as 
well, perhaps. He hoped to get his pension money soon,, 
and in point of fact had, like too many others of his 
countrymen, already hypothecated it to the " money 
sharks " for about 25 per cent, of its full value. 

" But what could you? " he asked with a shrug of his 
shoulders. " We have waited for years for that pension, 
and 25 per cent, is better than nothing." 

" One hundred per cent, is better still," I suggested. 

" Yes, perhaps ; but think of the long time to wait, 
Senor! Perhaps a year, and we may all be dead in that 
time ! Noiv is better than by and by, especially when it 
is to have money to spend ! " 

The Oh-be-joyful Present was vastly more to him than 
the doubtful Future, even with a golden spoon in its 
mouth. 

No, the Cuban has not changed one whit since we 
first became acquainted, away back in the " eighties." 
The waves of the American invasion may have rolled 
over him, may have tumbled him about in the surf, and 
knocked him off his feet; but he smilingly emerged, 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS loi 

relighted his temporarily extinguished cigarette, and 
kept on his humble way. 

At least, so it appears to me, for he still pursues his 
serene though aimless career, apparently unconcerned 
whether General Maximo, " Don Tomas," or some un- 
known American, occupies the position of supreme power. 
There have been agitations, " political upheavals," and 
gritos, for this, that, and the other aspirant for political 
honors; but at heart the average Cuban remains 
unchanged. 

The heroes of his heart are the aforementioned " Don 
Tomas " and General Maximo Gomez, the " Washington 
of Cuba," who lives in a modest house on an obscure 
street near the Prado in Havana. It may seem a con- 
tradiction of terms, but the greatest Cuban is not a 
native of Cuba, having been born in Santo Domingo. 
It was owing, I think, to my acquaintance with that 
island, that the old hero gave me a most cordial reception, 
when I called on him at his house. Although I went to 
him a stranger, we soon became well acquainted, and 
before I left he voluntarily offered, and wrote for me, a 
letter of introduction to the governor of Puerto Principe, 
which was the means of another most agreeable conver- 
sation on Cuban topics with one thoroughly acquainted 
with the island and the events of the war. 

" Don Tomas," as perhaps everybody knows, is Presi- 
dent Tomas Estrada Palma, inaugurated in May, 1902, 
who was born in the little town of Bayamo, Santiago 
province, in 1835. Although his birthplace is an isolated 
spot, his father, who was a wealthy planter, educated 
him for the bar and provided for him well. But when 
he was thirty-three years old he joined the insurgents 
at the beginning of the Ten Years' war. He rose to 



I02 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the rank of general and afterward filled the presidential 
chair of the insurrectionist provisional government. 

Then his family estates were confiscated, his mother 
was killed by Spanish troops, and in 1877 he was himself 
captured and taken to Spain. There he was kept for 
nearly two years in prison, refusing persistently to take 
the oath of allegiance to Spain to save his estates, and 
when he was released he vowed he would never retiwn 
to Cuba until she had achieved her independence. In 
pursuance of this vow he went to Honduras, where he 
fell in love with and married the daughter of the presi- 
dent of that republic and was made postmaster general. 

After residing in Honduras a while he went to the 
United States, settling at Central Valley, N. Y., where 
he opened a school for boys and thus gained a livelihood. 
His life in the United States was an open book to all, 
and especially well known, of course, is his career as 
the head of the Cuban junta, with headquarters in the 
city of New York. 

Seeing the innumerable company of Cubans loafing 
about their " shacks " of straw and palm leaves every- 
where so numerous in the country districts, and noting 
their apparently insatiable desire to do nothing all day, 
and do it thoroughly, foreign visitors have concluded 
that the Cuban is incurably lazy. It is an obvious 
conclusion, in fact, and I was surprised to be told by the 
superintendent of a large colonization scheme that Cuban 
labor as he found it was not only regular, but reliable. 
He had more than a hundred men at work, clearing 
land and planting orange trees, engaged all day and 
every day, from daylight till dark (with two hours' 
suspension of labor in the heat of the day), and had no 
cause for complaint. 



^"^";?SEfsr;!. 













THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 103 

The men are faithful, willing, and in their way indus- 
trious, their faults being those of an ignorant, simple- 
minded people, given somewhat to superstition and 
holding in reverence local and racial traditions. They 
still prefer the machete to the bush-scythe and grass-hook, 
for it is a universal implement as well as weapon. 

In this respect the Cuban is unchanged ; it is doubtful 
if he ever will change. He will spread out his hands and 
shrug his shoulders (rolling and lighting another cigar- 
ette the while) when shown the superior tools of the for- 
eigners ; he may make sporadic attempts to adopt them, 
but almost invariably will fall back upon his primitive 
implement of the time before the flood. His ancesters 
always used those implements ; they are good enough for 
anybody. For the Cuban has a great reverence for his 
ancestors. " Es costnmbre " — it is th^ way of our 
people — is his fetish, which he worships absolutely. Now 
it is, and always has been, costumhre to yoke the oxen by 
the horns, and to plow the land with a crooked stick. 
Of course, it is very painful to witness the apparent suf- 
fering of the dumb beasts, rigidly fastened to the tongue 
of a cart, every jolt of which twists their heads about and 
jars their nervous system. 

Efforts have been made to induce the Cubans to change 
this costumhre, but without avail. When the great Cuban 
railway was in process of construction, orders were issued 
for the adoption of yokes, in certain sections, which orders 
were at first sullenly obeyed, then in effect ignored. When 
the inspectors came around the oxen were found toiling 
ineffectually in the yokes, or else turned out to pasture 
\^iith galled necks and shoulders. It was not long before 
the order was revoked, and now it would be difficult to 
discover a team of oxen yoked up in the fashion so thor- 



I04 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

oughly despised by the natives. It seems still a mooted 
question, indeed, whether the oxen can do more work 
yoked in the American or the Cuban style. 

As to the feelings of the beasts themselves, the Cubans 
never felt impelled to inquire, until the inexplicable Amer- 
ican raised the question. It seemed, in fact, absurd, if not 
insane, to inquire what the dumb beast felt. Dumb beasts 
were created, the Cubans hold, to work for man, and are 
entitled to no consideration whatever. It may not be true, 
as some have stated, that the broncho ceases to buck and 
the mule to kick, in Spanish-American countries ; but at 
all events the bucking broncho and the kicking mule are 
exceedingly rare in these regions. The Spanish-American 
treats his dumb animals cruelly, with hardly any excep- 
tion ; but the result is that they are thoroughly convinced 
that he is their master, and rarely rebel. 

\\'hile cruelty seems to be ineradicable, and the Spanish- 
Americans, including the Cubans, dote on cock fights, 
bull fights, and other debasing sports, there is a strain of 
innate courtesy withal. I have experienced their kindness 
and courtesy on occasions, and always found them un- 
failing. Above all else, the Cuban is good-hearted. I find 
him the same in this respect as in the olden days. One 
might think that the vagaries of the American soldier and 
sailor, especially when out on a spree, and their well- 
known disregard of the social amenities on such an 
occasion, would have tended to sour the Cuban dis- 
position; but it seems to be as sweet and simple as 
ever, 

I once rode from Guana jay to Marielin a dilapidated 
cochc of the ancient type, and in company with three 
natives of the island. Two were men, each man clad in 
mud-stained shirt and pantaloons, the former worn on the 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 105 

outside, and their unstockiiiged feet thrust into Moorish 
sandals. 

The third native was a woman, and between us all we 
filled the coche nigh to overflowing. Soon after we 
started the rain came down in torrents and we were 
obliged to resort to every sort of expedient to prevent get- 
ting drenched. Though thinly clad in cotton garments, 
my two male companions ran the risk of a wetting in 
order to give me the best and driest seat, and perceiving 
that the gloom of the occasion seemed to have a depress- 
ing effect upon my spirits, exerted themselves to divert 
me. 

All were smoking, of course, and when the woman 
handed me, first a cigarette, and then a light, I was fain 
to join them in the trivial pastime. As the clouds of 
smoke rolled up, the sympathetic Cuban nature showed 
itself in inquiries as to my family, and as to whether I 
was very lonely so far removed from home and friends. 
They entered into my description of life in the States with 
infinite zest, and were profuse in their expressions of 
admiration for America and the Americans. The sefiorita 
told me vivaciously, between puffs, that she was a 
soltera — a spinster — and though she owned in her own 
right a valuable tract of land, she had no home of her own. 
but resided with married sisters. 

This reference to the fair sex reminds me that while 
I have said a great deal about the Cuhano, or male Cuban, 
I have almost entirely neglected the Cuhana, or the female 
of the family. That is because I have been speaking of 
the Cubans generically — as a whole, and not with respect 
to differentiating them sexually. As the whole, of course, 
embraces a part, what has been said respecting the Cuhano 
refers as well, allowing for sex, to the Cuhana. 



io6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

That there is a fair sex in Cuba goes without the say- 
ing; but whether she appear attractive, collectively and 
individually, depends upon the taste and temperament of 
the observer. When, as a younger man, I visited Havana, 
Santiago, etc., I was much impressed, I can recall, by the 
flashing black eyes, the graceful carriage, and the 
coquettish manners of the Cuban senoritas. But they are 
merely the Spanish damsels transplanted ; and it may be 
said of them as of the society and home life in the city, 
that having seen them in Spain you have nothing more to 
add; except that the same remarks apply to the senoraSj 
who are the senoritas after they are married. 

Society, schools, and churches illustrate the condition of 
the people and identify them with the dominant race or 
nationality. The society is Spanish ; the schools are nu- 
merous and modeled after those of the United States — 
thanks to our self-sacrificing educators — and the religion 
of the masses is Roman Catholic, some of the churches, 
notably in Havana, Santiago, and Puerto Principe, com- 
paring favorably, from an architectural standpomt, with 
their prototypes in Europe; though not so large nor so 
old as the finest in Spain. 

One of the things that impresses the visitor to Cuba, if 
he remain long and travel extensively, is the feeling of 
absolute security that prevails throughout the island. 
Those who have traveled in some of the " doubtful " 
countries will know what is meant when I say that there 
is something assuring in the very atmosphere. In Mexico, 
for example, say twenty years ago or so, the air was 
vibrant with a sense of insecurity, and a large revolver — 
the bigger the better — was very comforting, nestled 
snugly against one's hip or thrust into a belt. 

In certain districts of that country it was chiefly the 



THE CUBAN AS HE WAS AND IS 107 

revolver, visibly and largely in evidence, that kept trouble 
away from the foreigner, before resolute " Don Porfirio " 
throttled brigandage and brought the train and highway 
robbers to terms. We know what those terms were: his 
own, enforced by fearless and almost omnipresent " ru- 
rales," who stood the highwaymen up against a wall or a 
bank, and put bullets into them until there was no occa- 
sion for any more. 

By methods not so drastic, perhaps, nor on so extensive 
a scale as were pursued in Mexico by President Diaz, the 
Cuban authorities have finally rid their land of banditti. 
The last real brigands avowedly of the genuine stamp, 
were garroted in Santiago, while I was there, and since 
then the " rurales " have held what they themselves con- 
fess are veritable sinecures. 



yi 

COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA 

The American colonist becoming ubiquitous — Belongs to a 
superior class — What Cuba has to ofifer him — What the 
colonizers offer — Vast tracts of fertile soil, perfect climate ; 
beyond the reach of Jack Frost — Interior of the island 
opened to settlement by the Cuba Railway — Everything on 
earth may be raised here — A market for everything in the 
United States — How a home may be established — The best 
section to locate in — ^ Capital's favorites: sugar and tobacco; 
the humble colonist's tropical fruits and "garden truck" — 
Isle of Pines, La Gloria, Holguin, and Ceballos — The ele- 
mental requirements for getting a living — Rules for good 
health — Endemic diseases and insect pests — The maja or 
great Cuban boa constrictor — A description of the Isle of 
Pines — A nrtural health resort — Its girdle of treasure- 
galleons — Haunts of the old-time buccaneers, where a great 
treasure is buried in the sea. 

THE American colonist in Cuba, if not exactly 
ubiquitous, is very much in evidence. Every 
one of the six provinces has its colony, apd 
some of the provinces have several settlements, com- 
posed largely of restless individuals from the States 
who have gone to Cuba hoping to better their condition. 
Whatever may be their fortune, they cannot be considered 
other than valuable acquisitions, since most of them have 
money, many have brawn and energy, and some of them 
have all three combined. 

Taken all in all, the class of Americans that has gone to 
Cuba, hoping to find there the promiised land of iJ.s desires, 

io8 



COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA 109 

is a superior one, and would find a welcome anywhere. 
This is taking into account the people who have gone 
there to settle, to build homes, and if possible acquire for- 
tunes, and leaving out of the reckoning those who are 
exploiting Cuba for merely speculative purposes. Not 
that these last may not, also, be superior persons ; but 
they have not the vital interest in the outcome which the 
others possess. 

Viewed at long range, say from New York, Boston, or 
Chicago, the possibilities, the vast opportunities, of the 
Pearl of the Antilles, loom larger and grander than close 
at hand, perhaps. It is the perspective, of course, that is 
to blame for the glowing accounts of Cuba which one 
reads in real-estate, colonizing, and mining prospectuses ; 
the enchantment distance lends, which paints the picture 
in such brilliant hues. Distance requires a telescope, and 
no telescope is good unless it magnifies ! 

But, taking a strictly impersonal and unbiased view of 
Cuba and its colonists, making every aUowance for the 
enthusiasm of capitalists who have discovered a new coun- 
try to exploit, while at the same time sympathizing with 
the settlers who may not find it all their fancy painted it — 
or rather, the " other fellow's " fanc}^ — let us inquire into 
the status of the people who have gone down to possess 
the land. 

First, however, as to the island itself : Is it really worth 
the while ? As to that, it is only necessary to state that we 
have, in Cuba, an island large enough, almost, to be digni- 
fied with the name of country, more than 800 miles in 
length, 45,000 square miles in area, with little more than 
ten per cent, of its soil under cultivation, and with more 
than a million acres of forest lands. Lying, as it does, 
below the frost-line, with absolute exemption from the 



no OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

dangers attendant upon the cultivation of tropical fruits, 
as in Florida and California, it has attracted the attention 
of all those engaged in that occupation. 

It has a vast body of fertile soil, accumulated by the 
deposition of humus through uncounted centuries, which 
is almost if not quite inexhaustible. Above all, it 
has a climate the like of which cannot be found north of 
the island itself. Its climatic advantages alone would 
outweigh whatever disadvantages it possesses ; but these 
latter are almost nil, or at the most factitious — the result 
of artificial conditions. Until within a few years prohib- 
ited to the foreigner, the interior of the island, with its 
beautiful valleys, plains, and forest covered hillslopes, has 
been unexploited, and is yet to a great extent, in certain 
sections, tmsurveyed. 

It has been estimated that by the construction of the 
great Cuba Railway, alone, a territory including 70 per 
cent, of the island's area, with less than 40 per cent, of its 
population, was thrown open, or made available more or 
less remotely, to settlement. With scores of deep-water 
harbors, and with a railway system connecting the eastern 
and western provinces, its offshoots to both coasts con- 
stantly increasing in number, access is afforded to every 
important point in the island. 

As to Cuba's strategic position, commanding the Gulf 
of Mexico, the Caribbean, and almost in touch with all 
other islands of the Greater Antilles, we have nothing to 
do; but that position counts in an enumeration of its 
advantages. These advantages, then, are strategic, cli- 
matic, and cultural. x\s the largest of the West-Indian 
islands, Cuba holds a dominating position, and should a 
West-Indian Confederation ever be formed she would be, 
as she has often been styled, " Queen of the Antilles." 




Palm Tree Decapitated by Bullets, San Juan. 



COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA iii 

It is no exaggeration to say that every agricultural 
product on earth can be raised in some portion or other of 
the island, from strawberries and potatoes in the hill and 
mountain regions, to cocoanuts, coffee, bananas, and pine- 
apples, in the tropical Httoral. Finally, all these products 
are in such demand that they find a ready sale in the 
United States and such parts of Europe as can be reached 
without too long a sea-voyage. Cuba is within three days 
of New York, and as between California and the Atlantic 
seaboard the distance is less, while the water-borne 
freightage is about one-fourth what it is by rail from the 
Pacific coast, with our great metropolis as the objective. 
Tropical products,at present,and particularly citrus fruits, 
are discriminated against by duties imposed in favor of 
Florida and California, which amount to about the added 
cost of freight from the latter State across the continent. 

These are some of the facts that have combined to make 
the island of Cuba seem alluring to the pent-up dwellers 
in the frozen North in winter time. Perpetual summer 
(which, by the way, is a thing one can get too much of in 
a very little while) seems more attractive than six long 
months of winter ; and the prospect of raising one's own 
tropical fruits, out of doors and without a greenhouse, 
is seductive, to say the least. 

So the colonist went to Cuba, led thither, perhaps, by 
the flowery descriptions of the colonizer and (in the 
majority of cases, it is likely) kept there by a lack of the 
wherewithal to return, whether satisfied with the country 
or not. I am speaking of the average colonizer, of course, 
the one with small capital, who depends mainly on his 
muscles for support. He will naturally turn to small 
fruits, and perhaps to " garden truck," for a living, the 
while with his own hands, perhaps, constructing a house 



112 



OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 



in which to dwell. He has, probably, paid for a few acres, 
either wholly or in part, and has been guided in his choice 
by the advice of someone who knew as little about the 
subject as he himself. At all events, he is there, a stranger 
in a strange land, amid surroundings altogether new and 
novel, with climatic and elemental forces to combat of 
which he has but the faintest conception. Planting 
begins at the opening of the rainy season, or in the 
spring months. If the. colonist settle in Havana prov- 
ince, or in Pinar del Rio, he will be appalled by the gener- 
ally forlorn appearance of the natives, clad in cotton 
garments splashed with clay-streaks, sanguineous in hue 
and repulsive in appearance. The women, even, slatternly 
dressed, and most of them carrying babes in their arms, 
or leading children by the hand, are clay-bedaubed, while 
the native bohios, the rude huts of palm slabs and thatch, 
are painted with Nature's pigment two or three feet from 
the ground, the mud-stains indicating the high-water 
marks of the rainy season. Country travel is none too 
good in the season of sunshine, but as soon as the rains 
commence it is simply awful, for the roads are covered 
with a tenacious clay almost as adherent as that famous 
plaster, which " the more you tried to pull it off, the more 
it stuck the faster." 

Compelled to pull his weary feet out of a succession of 
clay-pits, as he wallows through his garden setting out 
his plants or putting in seed, his shoes increasing in size 
and weight until they are so large and heavy he can hardly 
lift them, the Colonist will probably be inclined to murmur. 
And especially will his thoughts take a pessimistic turn 
when the sun comes out and bakes the clay to the hardness 
of a pottery shard, and pinches the life out of whatever 
tender seedling it gets within its grip ! 



COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA 113 

There are good soils in the Havana province, notably 
in and about Guines and the southern branches of the 
United Railways, and this section is a good one for garden 
stuff and the smaller fruits that are most perishable. But 
it will not do to depend upon the Havana market, as John 
Chinaman supplies that almost exclusively, and he, as 
everybody knows, can beat the world at raising " truck," 
and all the world over, at that. Though the soils of this 
province are not so good as some farther east, here and in 
Matanzas province being generally thin and stony, the con- 
tiguity to the chief shipping port of the island,with frequent 
steamers- for the northern cities, is a great consideration. 

Although some American capital has been invested in 
the Vuelta Aba jo region of Pinar del Rio province, and 
adjacent to the fine natural port of Bahia Honda, it will 
probably not be the vegas where the famous tobacco is 
cultivated that will engage the attention of the colonist 
with small means ; nor the great central section in the 
Santa Clara province, with its vaster fields of sugar- 
cane. Tobacco, as the statistics show, is grown on the 
relatively insignificant amount of 100,000 acres, out of 
Cuba's grand total of 28,000,000; but it has been the 
means of enriching a great many. Its cultivation, how- 
ever, requires great care and skill, acquired only by long 
practice and traditional inheritance by natives from 
natives, so it will not do at all for the colonist. Neither 
should he think of sugar-cane, for the great ingenios are 
being gobbled up by corporate capital aggregating in the 
millions. The immense and world-renowned sugar 
estates of the central region and the north shores of San- 
tiago province, mainly, appear to occupy a large propor- 
tion of Cuba's acreage, but in reality cover only about 
one-sixtieth of the total area. 



114 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Pinar del Rio, the western province of Cuba, will not 
be a favorite with the colonist of slender resources, 
because of its poor soil in the main, which is intolerably 
dusty in the dry season, and stick-in-the-muddy in the wet. 
The same, with some qualifications, may be said of Havana 
province, and to some extent of Matanzas. Some push- 
ing Americans thought they had secured a title to the 
earthly paradise when they invested a million or so in the 
Isle of Pines. About ten per cent, of its 1200 square 
miles is classified as fertile, and this is found in detached 
vales amongst the hills ; a large proportion being sterile 
upland and " cienega," which is the Spanish for swamp, 
being used for that word in the prospectus in which the 
" immeasurable fertility " of the island is set forth. Only 
about one per cent, of the Isle of Pines was formerly cul- 
tivated,' but since the influx of the Americans with their 
colony, the area has been greatly increased. The culti- 
vable land remains the same, however, and the incoming 
agriculturists are wrestling with the problem : How 
to get a living from the soil, which time alone can 
solve. 

The climate of the Isle of Pines is nearly perfect, and 
it has the finest mineral springs in the world; but it lies 
sixty miles to the south of Havana, can be reached only 
by steamers drawing less than eight feet of water, and 
though it can raise anything that " grows on top of 
earth," all products must be first taken to Batabano, there 
transshipped, rail to Havana, with another transshipment 
to port of destination. All this, with the monopoly across 
the Gulf of Batabano, means probably the difference to 
the grower between profit and loss. 

With many things in his favor, including direct trans- 
portation to northern ports, even the advantageously- 



COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA 115 

situated colonist on the north coast of Cuba will have to 
face a similar situation : How to exist while the products 
of the soil are coming along. An obstinate.and apparently 
invincible colony on the north coast is that of La Gloria, 
about thirty miles from the port of Nuevitas, which has 
succeeded, in spite of many discouragements, in raising 
almost everything under the sun. But La Gloria is with- 
out rail or direct water communication with the outside 
world, and the sources of its existence are as mysterious 
as the impelling reason for locating it where it is. 

A colony situated within reach of civilization is Las 
Minas,- on the railroad between Puerto Principe and 
Nuevitas, and this appears to be flourishing. The same 
may be said of the Holguin colony, and the Ceballos ; 
though the latter, about ten miles from Ciego de Avila on 
the Cuba railway, is rather a cooperative concern than a 
colony, and is most skillfully managed. 

Without committing myself to an opinion as to the 
relative merits of these settlements, or of the several 
others I have seen, I may say that all show a determina- 
tion to hang on and succeed if possible. They have proved 
at least two things : that Americans can live and thrive in 
Cuba, and that the island has in it the makings of many a 
fortune. In all my wanderings about I did not see any 
Americans who seemed to be ill ; though I did see many 
very much down in the mouth. This is not saying, or 
even implying, that there are no endemic diseases there, 
for there are, but mostly of malarial or intestinal 
character.* 

* " The Cuban campaigii," said General Ludlow in his testimony 
before the war-investigation committee, " was a race between the 
physical vigor of the men and the Cuban malarial fever that lay 
in wait for them ! " 



ii6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

My advice would be : Avoid a chill, and avoid bad 
water. Rise early, always fortifying yourself with a cup 
of coffee before going out in the morning, work as much 
in the shade as possible, lie up at noontime for at least a 
couple of hours (take the siesta, which all the natives 
indulge in), and conform as much as you can to the life 
the natives lead. These rules I myself have followed 
during several years in the West Indies, and so can rec- 
ommend them. I have had fevers, and hard ones ; in fact, 
contracted a mild case of malaria on my last trip down ; 
but they were acquired by exposure and getting wet. 

While the elemental requirements for getting a living 
by agriculture all exist in Cuba, it does not follow that 
everybody can succeed even in making both ends meet. 
The fate of the pioneer — everybody knows what that is ! 

The monotony of country life in Cuba has hardly a 
palliative for one who comes from what he so fondly 
recurs to in his thoughts as " God's Country." He is 
likely to get down-hearted and to mope about the 
" shack," instead of looking about for the really interest- 
ing things to be seen outdoors on every side. If he sees a 
centipede, a scorpion, or tarantula — and they are all there, 
and liable to make for his " happy home " when the rains 
come down, preferring a dry thatch to a wet hole in the 
ground — he may possibly draw contrasts between life in 
the tropics and in the North. En passant, I may remark 
that while people are sometimes bitten or stung by all 
three, very few fatalities occur; and as for snakes, there 
is nothing worse than the big boa, locally known as the 
maja, which, though sometimes attaining a length of 
sixteen feet, is entirely harmless to human beings. But 
it likes fowl and dotes on chickens, so has to be reckoned 
with, if the settlement be near a forest. 




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COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA 117 

In summing up, I should say that, all things considered, 
a location on or near the north coast of the southeastern 
section of Cuba, which is two degrees to the south of 
Havana and has a nearly perfect climate, with rich soil, 
permitting of raising such purely tropical products as 
cofifee and cacao, as well as all the citrus fruits in per- 
fection, pineapples, etc., etc., would be preferable to any 
other. Immense tracts of virgin soil are yet available, 
and the scenery comprises some of the fairest prospects 
on earth. 

If, only, the colonist can hold on for several years, he 
may be able to overcome all the obstacles at present exist- 
ing and become wealthy through indomitable energy and 
foresight; but then again, he may not. Energy and 
foresight count for little as opposed to elemental and 
climatic forces. There is small danger from cyclones 
and hurricanes, in Cuba, especially in the western parts ; 
bvit the perpetual strain of the climate is something which 
few people from the North can endure without eventually 
yielding the best within them. 

It is well known that the American residents on the Isle 
of Pines have made a brave fight against the treaty by 
which the island was to be handed back to Cuba, basing 
their claims for continued protection from the United 
States upon their preponderance numerically, financial 
investfnents aggregating several millions of dollars, and 
the general well-being of an essentially American 
community. 

One thing seems to have been overlooked by the 
exploiters of the Isle of Pines, and that is the vast treas- 
ure by which the island is girdled. It is a matter of 
record, that treasure-ships by the score have been sunk 
off the Isla Evangelista, as the island was know^n in the 



ii8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ancient days of silver-laden galleons, which sometimes 
doubled the western end of Cuba on their voyages home- 
ward from Mexico and Yucatan. In the year 1560 a 
Spanish ship went to the bottom in a tempest when off 
the east end of Isle of Pines, carrying down twelve tons 
of silver from the mines of Guanabacoa, and a vast quan- 
tity of treasure comprised in rare jewels. 

The most romantic of those tales of sunken galleons 
pertains to a treasure-ship which was lost in the year 
1679, and all on account of an Indian slave, one of the 
very last left alive in Cuba. He was the property of Doiia 
Inez Escobedo, who was taking him as a present to her 
brother, a governor of one of the Canary islands. She 
also had a vast store of jewels, and there was with her a 
distinguished company of retired officers of the Crown, 
most of whom had gold and silver in bars, from the pro- 
ceeds of which they intended to live in luxury in Spain. 

One fine morning, when the galleon was a few miles to 
the southeast of the Isle of Pines, it was discovered that 
she had sprung a leak, and when the master of the vessel 
started to investigate he was met by the sound of blows, 
caused by the Indian slave, who with a hatchet was scut- 
tling the ship. He warned the captain not to advance, 
as he himself was determined to die, and meant to carry 
down with him the whole ship's company. 

In order to draw his fire, a black slave was thrown into 
the hold; but the Indian paid no attention to him, and 
went on with his vengeful work. Then into the hold 
sprang an old Spanish officer, one Sefior Don Jose Nufiez, 
a caballcro of renown, who with drawn sword advanced 
in the darkness against the desperate Indian. Seeing no 
means of escape, and having accomplished his purpose, 
the Indian crawled beneath a beam and drowned himself 



COLONISTS AND CAPITAL IN CUBA 119 

in the fast-deepening water, which soon gained upon the 
pumps to such an extent that the galleon sank with all its 
treasures, the passengers barely saving their lives. 

Within sight of the Isle of Pines, in the calm of a sum- 
mer sea, this galleon went down with all its treasure, and 
though many attempts have been made to recover the 
latter, they have not yet succeeded. To keep her com- 
pany, one of the infrequent hurricanes that sometimes 
occur off the southwest coast of Cuba sent to Davy Jones' 
locker a galleon which had been captured by a buccaneer. 
This buccaneer was the redoubtable Bartholomew Portu- 
guese, a crafty corsair, whose headquarters were at the 
island of Tortuga, off the north coast of Haiti. Prowl- 
ing about the Isle of Pines, he suddenly came upon and 
captured a treasure-ship with half a million dollars' worth 
of gold and silver bars. He had hardly set the Spanish 
crew adrift, after cutting the throats of several, as a 
warning, when a hurricane sprang up that sent his ship 
to the bottom; and there she lies, presumably, to-day, 
neither ship nor treasure having been seen since that time. 



VII 

JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 

Distance from Santiago to Jamaica — Port Antonio and Kings- 
ton — Blue Mountain Peak and the way to it — Valleys, 
streams, and ridges — The land of springs — Three zones of 
vegetation — All the fruits of the Tropics — No description 
' '" can do justice to Nature's pictures in Jamaica — Discovered 
by Columbus, captured by Admiral Penn — Port Royal, 
ancient pirate city, and its awful end — Where the hotels are 
to be found — Kingston's shabby-genteel architecture and 
its suburbs — Roads, railways and highways, 800 miles 
of them — A city that wants to be clean — An island that 
wants to be American — Steamship lines running to 
Jamaica — Its situation in relation to Panama — Why 
Jamaica prefers Brother Jonathan to John — Her best cus- 
tomer and best friend — Has long been " on the fence " — A 
prophecy made in 1782 — What Mr. Froude says anent 
Jamaica's future — What Mr. MacNish says — A position 
painful to contemplate. 

BEYOND Santiago and the south coast of Cuba we 
find a glorious assemblage of islands, scattered 
over the fair and tranquil Caribbean Sea. Two 
routes are open to us thence : one to Haiti, Santo Do- 
mingo, Puerto Rico, and the crescentic Carribbees, and 
the other to Jamaica, land of running streams and loft}' 
mountains. 

It would seem, perhaps, invidious to descant upon the 
scenery of any one island more than another, for in truth 
each has a bit of earthly paradise to show ; but Jamaica 
is certainly one of the most attractive. It is only 172 



JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 121 

miles from Santiago to Kingston, 90 from the nearest 
point on the Cuban coast to Montego Bay, and about the 
same distance to that thriving port on the north coast, San 
Antonio. And while we are mentioning distances, it 
may be as well to note that the last-named port is just 
1400 miles from New York, from which a run of four 
hours by rail, or seventy miles by sea, brings one to 
Kingston, the emporium and capital city of Jamaica. 
There was a time, not long since, when Kingston absorbed 
all the travel and most of the traffic of the island; but 
things have changed since the establishment of the 
United Fruit Company in Jamaica, with its splendid 
steamers direct to Port Antonio, and its fine hotel perched 
above the port and growing city. 

Still, the entrance to Kingston's magnificent harbor is 
well worth the short voyage around the east end of the 
island to view, especially as we pass close to ancient Port 
Royal, and abreast the palm-covered Palisadoes, the far- 
stretching sand-spits which fend off the rough waves 
from the southward. Entrancing mountain views we 
have had, ever since we sighted land, for grand Blue- 
Mountain Peak rises to a height of 7300 feet, the domi- 
nant pinnacle of a system which comprises several other 
elevations rising five and six thousand feet, with lateral 
ridges running to the coast on either side, north and 
south. Between them are valleys and streams — more 
than one hundred of the latter — most of which are hidden 
from sight ; but enough revealed to evoke wonder, admi- 
ration, and astonishment in the beholder. 

Like Cuba, this island still retains its original and 
aboriginal name, which was " Xaymaca," the land of 
woods and waters, island of springs ; and, given a tropical 
climate, with abundance of water, thus supplying heat 



122 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

and moisture, the great requisites for exuberant vegeta- 
tion, we may not be astonished at the results. In fact, 
borrowing a simile from the Spanish, our vision embraces 
the range of three zones of vegetation when we look upon 
Jamaica from the sea : the ticrra calicntc, or hot zone ; 
the templada, or temperate, and the fria, or cold region ; 
and no mere being of human mold can do justice in a 
verbal description to the composite picture presented. 

Imagine, if you can, the ranks and crowds of cocoa 
palms along the shores, the bananas, plantains, bamboos, 
and hosts of tropical fruit-trees, abounding in the middle 
zone ; and try to picture the shady nooks with their gush- 
ing springs and babbling brooks, with their silver, golden, 
and tree-ferns, trumpet trees, ceibas, mahogany, green- 
heart — all precious woods, in truth ; the clearings with 
their wealth of coffee, cacao, orange, lime, lemon, bread- 
fruit, mango, custard-apple, guava, cinchona, nutmeg, and 
pimento (with spices and "gales from Araby"); the 
gold-green seas of sugar-cane, the brown squares of 
native provision-grounds tip-tilted against the hillsides; 
the somber sweeps of forest, and above all, the towering 
peaks in space supernal, their brows adorned with cloud- 
wreaths woven from the rising mists. 

No, no, it is impossible to do justice to Jamaica's land- 
scape charms on paper ; neither can canvas portray them 
adequately, for, though the forms may be imitated, not 
so the multi-colored vegetation, the evanescent hues of 
leaf and fruit, seen through the mist and sunshine min- 
gled, as in a cloth of gold. 

Let us, then, lay hold of something concrete and tan- 
gible : for. example, the old pirate city that lies abeam on 
the tip end of the Palisadoes, to wit. Port Royal, for here 
we have near a century of Jamaica's history in epitome. 



JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 123 

Its history, that is, after the island was taken by Penn 
and Venables, in 1655. Admiral Penn (our immortal 
William's pater) proceeded against the Spaniards by 
sturdy Cromwell's orders, because they had murdered 
English sailors and driven English ships out of the 
Caribbean Sea. 

That was the beginning of British rule in Jamaica, two 
hundred and fifty years ago. The Spaniards had been 
in possession since 1509, Christopher Columbus having 
discovered the island in 1494. Their first settlement was 
on the north coast, in the parish of Saint Ann's, but about 
1630 they founded another which they called San Jago de 
la Vega, over on the mainland opposite Port Royal, which 
is now known as Spanish Town, and is worth the trouble 
of a visit, being within a few miles -of Kingston. 

The putative founder of Sevilla, the first town, was 
Don Diego Columbus, son of Christopher, and to his 
son, Don Luis, was given the marquisate of La Vega. 
While on this subject, I may mention that some of the 
Spanish names survive in a corrupted form, as Boca del 
Agua, a. beautiful stream now known as the " Bog 
Walk " ; Agua Alta, the " Wag Water " ; Rio Cobre ; 
Montego, from Manteca, because the Spaniards tried out 
lard in the bay; Rio Novo, etc. 

But Port Royal brings to mind the times of old, when 
English and French and Dutch went buccaneering, at 
first in quest of the common enemy, the Spaniards, and 
after that in search of plunder, no matter what the nation- 
ality of the people to whom it belonged. Hither came 
the mighty Morgan, afterwards Sir Henry, by the grace 
of King Charles II. ; Lollonois, Mansveldt, and many 
another buccaneer and pirate of high as well as low 
degree, and the streets of gay Port Royal rang with 



124 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

revelry such as suited the whims of men engaged in deeds 
of blood. Hand-in-hand with the pirates, the slavers, 
also, united to give the town an evil reputation, for one 
historian of Jamaica, Bryan Edwards, says that more 
than 600,000 were landed here between the years 1680 
and. 1786. But the end came, in the year 1692, when 
Port Royal slid off into the sea, carrying with it such as 
remained of " the most ungodly people on the face of the 
earth " ; and, 'tis said, when the water is calm, one may 
see to-day the submerged ruins of dwellings, warehouses, 
forts, and churches. 

In the museum of the Jamaica Institute at Kingston 
may be seen a bell of the church which went under with 
the rest ; and over at Green Bay, on the opposite shore, 
stands (or recently stood) a tombstone to the memory of 
one who was thrown into the sea, on that dreadful day in 
June, 1692, and by a second earthquake shock thrown out 
again, living more than forty years thereafter. 

Port Royal to-day shows few if any traces of that ter- 
rible catastrophe ; at least, I saw none on my first visit 
there, when, as the guest of Commodore Lloyd of 
H. M. S. " Urgent," I lunched at headquarters ashore.* 
Perhaps it was the lunch, perhaps the pirates are all dead ; 
but I recall only the former, which was so excellent I 
felt that looking for the latter would be a waste of time. 
The Commodore had an attractive collection of tropical 

* The American Consul, Mr. Estes, and Mr. Frederick A. 
Ober, the Commissioner of the World's Fair to the West Indies, 
breakfasted on Thursday with Admiral Gherardi on board the 
war-ship " Philadelphia." Shortly after midday Mr. Estes and 
Mr. Ober proceeded by steam-launch to Port Royal and had 
luncheon with Commodore Lloyd. — The Jamaica Post, March 28, 
1891. 





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JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 125 

plants, which, along with everything and everybody else 
at Port Royal, were watered from a spring seven miles 
distant across the bay, there being no local aqueous sup- 
ply at the Port. 

What the old buccaneers did for water, history does not 
inform us, except indirectly. That is, we are told that 
rum and wine were freer than water there, a cask of one 
or the other being " on tap " all the time in the streets ; 
and woe betide the man who refused to drink at the 
behest of the bewhiskered buccaneers, who " set 'em up " 
whenever they were flush. They were always in good 
spirits . so long as the liquor lasted ; but it gave out at 
last,, after the perfidious Morgan was knighted, for he 
turned upon his erstwhile comrades and sent many of 
them to the gallows-tree, to which he himself should have 
preceded them. On Gallows Point, not far away, you 
may see the place where they were gibbeted and the vul- 
tures .picked their bones. 

The defection of Sir Henry Morgan, buccaneer, cut- 
throat, piratical gentleman of the sea, finds its parallel in 
an event of modern times, to wit, the case of the East- 
Indian mongoose. This animal was introduced into 
Jamaica for the purpose of destroying the Norway rat 
(likewise a foreigner) and accomplished the intended 
purpose effectually. 

But alas ! it destroyed everything else that was not 
bigger than itself, birds as well as quadrupeds, and the 
last state of Jamaica was infinitely worse than the first. 
The birds being nearly exterminated, the insect pests mul- 
tiplied exceedingly, particularly the ticks, inasmuch as it 
is as much as one's life is worth to take a walk in the 
fields or though a bit of woods. The mongoose upset 
the balance of Nature — and now, it is reported, Nature 



126 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

is upsetting the mongoose, for the ticks are attacking and 
kilHng the very animal that caused their multipHcation ! 

Meanwhile, we are supposed to be sailing across the 
land-locked harbor to Kingston, capital and chief city of 
Jamaica, which, with due regard to actual conditions, :s 
vastly more attractive at a distance than close aboard. 
Seen across the bay, with its fringe of cocoa pahns, which 
also besprinkle the city considerably, and with its effective 
background of mountains draped in tropical vegetation, 
Kingston presents an alluring spectacle ; but when 
arrived at one of its wharves one no longer wonders why 
the early pirates took to Port Royal and its early inhabi- 
tants took to drink. 

And yet, Kingston has improved wonderfully within 
my recollection. It is no longer the ramshackle town of 
Tom Cringle's time, for there were no trams then, 
and the hero of the immortal " Log " either had to foot it 
or ride on horseback, whenever out on mischief bent. 

But, when we compare the Kingston of to-day with the 
city of day before yesterday, it is almost entitled to be 
classed with Havana and Santiago. For it tries to be 
clean, and has always been respectable. It has not had 
an influx of benevolent Yankees, like those who took hold 
of the Cuban cities, washed their faces, scrubbed their 
streets, and after showing them what they ought to do 
and how to do it, leaving behind a few million dollars 
with which to do it. Whatever has been done for Kings- 
ton has proceeded from her innate love of cleanliness, 
not from a factitio'us virtue which had to be dinged into 
her head by a sort of surgical operation ! The improve- 
ments have cost money, to be sure ; but the authorities 
nobly borrowed it on the island's credit, and that will 
explain how it is they have a debt of about £3,487,452, 



JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 127 

more or less — but not much less. Seventeen million 
dollars in debt, with a population rmder 800,000, and less 
than 15,000 of them avowedly white, Jamaica must have 
harbored some " Napoleons of finance " within her bor- 
ders, at some time or other. Perhaps they are there now, 
perhaps they are hiding in the woods ; but they don't 
seem to be able to draw her out of the mire into which she 
has fallen and appears to be hopelessly held. 

Not all the borrowed money went into civic improve- 
ments, for, in Sir Henry Blake's time, ten to fifteen years 
ago, much of it went for roads — for which God bless the 
builders ! Then there is the railroad from Kingston 
northwest to Montego Bay, 113 miles, and northeast 
to Port Antonio, 75 miles, which runs part of the way 
through a tropical Eden, and some of the way through 
swamps and brush. It cost " a mint of money," much 
of which went into pockets, the natives say, not emptied 
in Jamaica. 

However, it connects Kingston, and its 45,000 popula- 
tion, with Montego Bay (5000) at the western terminus, 
passing through Spanish Town (5000), and several other 
towns along the way. It is a boon to the tourist, for 
thereby he may see the country without great effort, and 
revel in scenery otherwise not accessible to the traveler. 

Neither should the hotels be omitted in this account of 
what the (other) peoples' money went for, since they 
exist to-day and minister to the wants of the tourist in 
places which, but for the borrowed money, might never 
have been opened to the public. Not alone the Constant 
Spring near Kingston, which is a palatial and well-set 
structure in a cool and airy situation, but the charming 
little inn at Rio Cobre, Spanish Town ; the one at Mon- 
eague, and several others in the country districts, are in 



128 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

evidence. In fact, Jamaica is quite a contrast to some 
other islands that might be mentioned, in its possession of 
good roads, fine hotels, and country inns, and a hospitahty 
that is bountiful and overflowing. 

The largest of the British West Indies, it is, next to 
Barbados, the most thoroughly English of them all. Its 
4193 square miles of territory (the island is 144 miles in 
length and 50 in width) is divided into three counties, all 
with names derived from Old England, as Surrey, Mid- 
dlesex. Cornwall ; as are those of its fourteen parishes, 
such as Hanover, Portland, Manchester, Clarendon, etc. 
The people are intensely loyal to King Edward and the 
British Government ; }'et with a reservation that bespeaks 
them possessed of at least a modicum of common-sense, 
when they reflect upon the contiguity of the United States 
and a market, as opposed to the inefficiency of the " right 
little, tight little island," 5000 miles away. 

Until recently there was only a roundabout communi- 
cation with England by way of the " Royal Mail " line of 
steamers ; but now that American enterprise has stimu- 
lated competition, there is a direct mail line, the Elder- 
Dempster, which " does " the distance between Jamaica 
and the Mother Island in about twelve days. This is as 
opposed to four or five days between Jamaica and Boston, 
Baltimore, or Philadelphia, b}^ steamers of the United 
Fruit Company, or the Hamburg-American to New York, 
which has taken the place of the old-time " Atlas " line. 

The British have, apparently, only recently become 
aware that they are -losing the trade, and perhaps the loy- 
alty, of a large and fertile island, which has acquired 
increased importance from the building of the Panama 
canal. Lying right in the direct route of steamers 
between the Isthmus and all Atlantic ports of the United 



JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 129 

States, and less than 550 miles distant from Colon, 
Jamaica, more than any other island, will feel the impetus 
this vast undertaking will give to all enterprises in the 
Caribbean Sea, of which it is nearly the exact geographi- 
cal center. It may reach out and grasp, or at least take 
tribute from, the commerce of the Central and South 
American littoral — of the rich Veragua coast and Spanish 
Main. There is doubtless a great future for Jamaica, 
and perhaps Britons are beginning to perceive this, as 
evidenced by their increased efforts to retain its trade ami 
maintain connection with its ports. 

Love, the cynic says, is a mere matter of propinquity, 
and. almost any man may love almost any woman (and 
vice versa), provided they be thrown together often 
enough — though not too often to dispel the illusion. This, 
in a word, is probably the reason why Jamaica prefers 
Brother Jonathan to John Bull : because he is nearer, and 
being, also richer, is, of course, the more available as well 
as desirable, parti. 

Political considerations have held her against geo- 
graphical conditions. If Cromwell had not sent out that 
expedition under Penn and Venables, about the middle of 
the seventeenth century, as the outcome of which Jamaica 
passed from Spanish' into English hands, we might now 
be claiming proprietorship there, as well as in Puerto 
Rico. 

Without pausing to discuss the desirability of this 
prospective acquisition (though, in parenthesis, it may be 
said that much may be argued in its favor), let us inquire 
into the motive for Jamaica's behavior. In the first place, 
contiguity, a distance of about 1400 miles, as against 
5000 ; five days' voyaging as opposed to twelve, and a first- 
class passage of $40, rather than $150. Then, again, even 



I30 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

despite the distance that separates them, the English 
have not taken their due proportion of Jamaica's prod- 
ucts. We are her chief customers, taking all of 6o 
per cent, of her sugar, rum, bananas, etc., while the 
United Kingdom takes less than 30 per cent. 

Ungrateful Jamaica, however, instead of reciprocating, 
allows her political sentiments to outweigh commercial 
obligations, and buys more than half her manufactured 
goods of merchants in the " mother country." She also 
supports a long list of officials at salaries ranging from 
i6ooo, allowed the governor, to a beggarly i6oo, given 
to the registrar general. It is evident, then, why British 
officialdom is loath to let go ; though not so evident why 
Jamaica still clings to the paternal hand. 

Two weeks after Admiral Dewey's victory, which gave 
us control in the Philippines, the writer put forth in a 
Washington paper a tentative proposition for a " swap." 
That was probably the first suggestion of an exchange of 
the Philippines for the British West Indies. Since that 
time, however, the proposition has been considered in all 
seriousness, and it is not unlikely that what was intended 
as a suggestion merely may crystallize into an actuality. 

Not to wander too far from the subject, however, and 
to come around to the original statement that Jamaica's 
love for us is no new fancy of recent birth, let me quote 
in support from Bryan Edwards' " History of the British 
Colonies in the West Indies," published in the last decade 
of the eighteenth century. Referring to the bill pre- 
sented to the Hoirse of Commons in March, 1782, by the 
Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
" for the purpose of reviving the beneficial intercourse 
that existed before the late American war, between the 
United States and the British sugar islands," he says; 









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JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 131 

" This bill, through the influence of popular prejudice 
and other causes, was, unfortunately, lost. Had it passed 
into a law it would probably have saved from the horrors 
of famine fifteen thousand unoffending negroes, who 
miserably perished, in Jamaica alone, from the sad effects 
of the fatal restrictive system which prevailed. 

" With a chain of coast of twenty degrees of latitude, 
possessing the finest harbors for the purpose in the world, 
all lying so near to the sugar colonies and the track to 
Europe — with a country abounding in everything the 
islands have occasion for, and which they can obtain 
nowhere else — all these circumstances necessarily and 
naturally lead to a commercial intercourse between our 
islands and the United States ! It is true, we may ruin 
our sugar colonies, and ourselves also, in the attempt to 
prevent it, but it is an experiment which God and nature 
have marked out as impossible to succeed." 

He continues : " I write with the freedom of history, 
for it is the cause of humanity that I plead." And he 
might have added, " with the spirit of prophecy," for this 
remarkable forecast was written more than a hundred 
years ago. Bryan Edwards was for many years a resi- 
dent in Jamaica, and knew the island well. Since his 
time there have been many famous men born or resident 
there whose lives and works have shown that the so-called 
Anglo-Saxon does not deteriorate in the tropics. Jamaica, 
indeed, has always held first place in the cause of West 
Indian civilization, as evidenced not only in individual 
cases, but by her literary and scientific societies. 

So long ago as 1775 (to instance a noteworthy act in 
a slave colony) a debating society in Kingston determined 
by a majority that " the trade to Africa for slaves is 
neither consistent with sound policy, the laws of nature. 



132 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

nor morality." Yet Bristol and Liverpool petitioned 
against its restriction, says the historian, and the Earl of 
Dartmouth (president of the board of trade) declared : 
" We cannot allow the colonies to check or discourage in 
any degree a traffic so beneficial to the nation." 

That same year, also, 1775, the Assembly of Jamaica 
petitioned his Majesty in favor of the Americans, in their 
forthcoming struggle. Their petition was disregarded, 
however, and in consequence of the war, as the Jamaicans 
had foreseen would be the case, many articles neces- 
sary in the West Indies rose to four times their usual 
price. 

It is most interesting to note at the present time that 
not only has Great Britain's attitude toward her suffering 
colony been consistently oppressive, but that Jamaica's 
attitude as toward us has been constantly friendly, and in 
a measure prescient of that great change which shall some 
time bring her into closer relations with our country. 
That change may not come about in this century ; but 
eventually we shall acquire, not alone Jamaica, but all her 
sister islands of the Caribbean Sea — those glittering gems 
in a chain which links us to that country for our future 
commercial expansion — the continent of South America. 

James Anthony Froude, who was in Jamaica in 1887, 
has this paragraph in his " The English in the West 
Indies," referring to the British islands : " The Ameri- 
cans will not touch them politically, but they will trade 
with them; they will bring their capital and skill and 
knowledge among them, and make the islands more pros- 
perous than ever they were — on one condition : they will 
risk nothing in such enterprises as long as the shadow 
hangs over them of a possible government by a black 
majority ! " 



JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES ' 133 

When in Kingston, the traveler will — at least he ought 
to — visit the mercantile establishment of " MacNish, Lim- 
ited," founded and presided over by Mr. Thomas Mac- 
Nish, a stalwart Scotchman, who has hved in the West 
Indies nearly forty years, acquired a competency by hard 
and honest labor in his business, maintained himself in 
health through many seasons of fever and hurricane, and 
(incidentally, be it mentioned), has raised a family of 
sixteen children of whom any man might well be proud. 
Mr. MacNish (who ought to know), is constantly point- 
ing out to the Jamaicans their mistake in allying them- 
selves, politically and commercially, with Britain, rather 
than with the United States. 

As Mr. MacNish has, time and again, printed in the 
local papers of Kingston facts and figures which irre- 
futably maintain his position, I am betraying no confi- 
dence in publishing the substance of what may be called 
the " inside history " of Jamaica's government. 

" Someone," says Mr. MacNish, " has called our Gov- 
ernment a benevolent despotism. Benevolent humbug ! 
We have no Government — only tax collectors ! We 
have no citizens — only taxpayers, and the laboring 
classes are only economic slaves. Land laborers, 18 cents 
per day for men, and 12 cents a day for women, and all 
food stufifs and necessaries of life taxed the heaviest of 
any place under the Union Jack ! Coolies are imported, 
and by contract are to get 24 cents per day. They live 
on rice, on which the import duty is 3 shillings per cwt., 
and ghee, which is 2 pence per pound. Common flour is 
taxed 8 shillings per barrel, etc. [See list appended.] 

" Jamacia is doomed to poverty and hunger, unless the 
miraculous happens. Sir David Barbour, K. C. S. I., 
who was sent out by the British Government to report 



134 ■ OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

upon the causes of Jamaica's depression, was astonished 
when his attention was called to the manner in which, all 
articles, mainly food stuffs, were discriminated against 
by Jamaica, to the tune of 54 per cent. 

" Here is the list, as it appears in the Barbour Report : 

" Foodstuffs and necessaries of life which the people in Jamaica 
can only get at a fair living price from the United States, and 
the import duties on same : 

COST. DUTY. 

Flour, baking, barrel, 196 lbs $3.60 $1.92 

Flour, shop, barrel, 196 lbs 2.75 1.92 

Crackers, 100 lbs 3.00 l.oo 

Corn Meal, barrel, 196 lbs 2.15 0.48 

Hams, 100 lbs 10.00 4.00 

Lard, 5 lb. tins, 100 lbs 7.00 2.00 

Butter, 5 lb. tins, 100 lbs 22.00 4.00 

Oleomargarine, 5 lb. tins, 100 lbs 8.00 4.00 

Matches, 50 gross boxes, 45 in box... 15.00 21.60 

Kerosene, 100 gals, in tins, 150 test best 8.50 12.75 

Salt Beef, 100 lbs S-OO 1.80 

Salt Pork, 100 lbs 4-50 1.80 

Sausages, 100 lbs 12.50 4.00 

Bacon, 100 lbs II.75 4-00 

Mutton, 100 lbs. frozen 8.50 20% 1.75 

$124.25 $67.02 54% 

Average. 

" Jamaica's oranges are shut out of the markets of the 
States by the 6 shillings protective duty in favor of Cali- 
fornia and Florida, and should the President of the 
United States have his attention called to the un-British 
import duties on America produce, by which the balance 
of trade is nigh $4,000,000 per annum against his 
country and in favor of Breat Britain, he would be 
compelled to demand fair trade, or a tax upon our pro- 
duce. With a fair import tax on American foodstuff 
and necessaries of life, double the quantity would be used 
here, and an equable trade arise between the two 
countries." 



JAMAICA, QUEEN OF THE ANTILLES 135 

Revenue. 

Import duties £381,952105 od 

Licenses and excise 190,973 4 i^ 

Fees, stamps 70,321 o i J 

Postoffice, telegraphs 32,804 18 5 J 

Railway 142,305 9 10 

Petties, balance 37,617 7 9J 



^855,974 los 3|d 
General Expenditure. 

Charges of debt £209,208 3s od 

Governor and staff 6,745 2 6 

States subsidy to England 20,000 o 

Education 55,423 6 9 

Medical 49,799 5 4i 

Public virorks and buildings 64,232 10 7 

Railway 80,341 7 3 

Judicial (law, not justice).... 38,290 18 9J 

Police and prisons 75,847 7 3f 

Military, militia (to fight the 

Yankees who support us) . . . 12,636 19 5 

Subsidy telegraph 2,500 o 

Petty officials, customs, etc 173,721 12 loj 

£788,846 14s 2d 
Debts. 
Net present liability £3,487,452 19s 7d 

Exports. 

United States £i,539,375 9s 7id 

Britain 393,042 5 2I 

Elsewhere 287,21913 8 

£2,219,637 8s 6d 
Imports. 

United States £803,070 15s lod 

Britain 997,444 6 8 

Elsewhere 190,369 i3 8 

£1,990,884 i6s 2d 
Of imports £39,692 is 9d are free: United States £470 os od; 
British £39,222 is gd. 



136 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

" The contractor for the railway to Port Antonio paid 
laborers a dollar a day, and stated that he did not desire 
better value than the black men gave at that wage; but 
at twenty cents and a shilling, they are slowly starving 
to death. Out of this pittance, even, they are obliged to 
pay the most extortionate and unjust of import duties 
on foodstufifs — which can only be had from the United 
States — the nation which keeps us alive by taking two- 
thirds of our products free of duties ! " 

These are some of Mr. MacNish's facts, and he backs 
them up with most convincing figures. Respecting his 
suggestion to the Royal Commissioner, that retrenchment 
begin with a reduction in salaries of department heads, 
such as the governor general with his $30,000 a year, 
and the attorney general with $7500, etc., Sir David 
demurred, on the ground that a lower-paid official might 
render poorer service. (?) As a sigh-salaried official 
himself, the Commissioner evidently had a fellow-feeling 
for the Jamaica incumbents that was vastly more, than 
" wondrous kind." 



VIII 
A FEW THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 

A land of lavish hospitality — The country inns and great 
houses of the estates — A highway that engirdles the island 
— Trip to the Peak of Blue Mountain — Hope River, Cin- 
chona, and Newcastle cantonments — Government botanical 
and experimental stations — King's House, when Sir Henry 
Blake was Governor-General — Up-Park Camp and Hope 
Gardens — Castleton Gardens on the Wag Water — Spanish 
Town, the " City of the Dead " — Beautiful scenery of the 
Bog Walk — Saint Thomas in ye Vale, the Cockpit Country, 
Morant Bay, and the thermal springs of Bath on Garden 
River — Cane River and Three-fingered Jack — Manchioneal ; 
John Crow Mountains and Moore Town, home of the famous 
Maroons — Old Cudjoe, king of Nanny Town, and the dance 
he led the soldiers — Pimento groves of Saint Ann's, and the 
falls of Roaring River — The bay Columbus stayed in when 
wrecked — Famous men who have been in Jamaica — Its 
natural history — Schools, churches, and church-goers — 
Proverbs of the English negroes. 

WITH more than seven hundred miles of mag- 
nificent roads, leading to all the attractive 
and commercial points of the island, some 
of them winding over hills and mountains to an eleva- 
tion of 4000 feet, some again following the trend of the 
coast, with branches here and there to interesting places, 
and with every mile something rare and beautiful for 
northern eyes to view, Jamaica is certainly the paradise 
of cyclist, automobilist, and pedestrian. 

By means of the numerous highways and their byways, 

137 



138 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the far-seeing English residents of Jamaica have made 
available to the tourist some of the most beautiful scenery 
of tropical America. As the island is English in its gov- 
ernment, speech, customs, and style of living, possessing 
numerous small inns and road-houses scattered through- 
out the country districts, as well as good hotels in town 
and city, while the most hospitable of islanders are domi- 
ciled in stately mansions and " great houses " on the 
estates, one might put in a full month to advantage. 

By all means, if time allows, take the great drive over 
the chain of public highways that engirdles the island, 
running mainly along the coast, and for which you may 
hire a " rig " in Kingston, two horses and a driver, for 
about a pound a day. Failing the drive, take the coastal 
steamer to the various harbors, which costs about the 
same per diem, but with meals and state-room included. 
But the highway journey is by all odds the better way of 
seeing the island, for the varied pictures, of tropical vege- 
tation, of roaring rivers, of dashing surf, of overhanging 
palms, pimento, orange, banana, and coffee groves, and 
paradisaical plantations, are actually unsurpassed. Add 
to these the beauties of the winding paths and lanes, 
the balmy air (at the right season), the tropical fruits and 
beverages, the unique natives and their huts — all these 
combine to swell an experience really worth something. 

Now, Kingston, as already intimated, is vastly more 
interesting as to its environment than its intrinsic attrac- 
tions. It is well situated as a point of departure for other 
and better places, for example, the Blue Mountain Peak, 
which towers above it more than seven thousand feet. 
By driving in a buggy to Gordon Town, arriving there at 
daybreak and taking ponies for the mountain trail, it is 
possible to accomplish the ascent and return in one day. 




Cocoa Grove, coast of 'Jamaica. 



THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 139 

Once arrived, and provided the mist does not obscure 
the view, you will find beneath and around you the 
grandest of mountain peaks, with their incomparable val- 
leys, the eye ever beheld. The view is indescribable in its 
grandeur and beauty, and the ride thither a fitting prelude 
to the scene. There is a hut, simply furnished, at the 
Peak, and it is advisable to give at least two days to the 
trip, in order to view the cloud effects at sunrise and 
sunset, and to experience the sensation of isolation, on a 
lofty pinnacle in the clouds beneath a tropic sky. 

The drive through the picturesque gorge of Hope 
River, with the " ferns and plantains waving in the moist 
air, cedars, tamarinds, gum trees, orange trees, striking 
their roots among the clefts of the crags, and hanging 
out over the abysses below them," is one of the finest 
anywhere to be found. It ends at Gordon Town, whence 
one may journey on to New Castle cantonments, where 
troops are quartered for their health on the steep slant 
of hills nearly 4000 feet above the sea. Beyond, also, 
21. miles distant from Kingston, is the Government cin- 
chona plantation, which, with its 150 acres, constitutes 
an experimental station for the cultivation of exotic eco- 
nomic plants, chiefly tropical in character, though the 
altitude is from 5000 to 6000 feet above sea level. 

One of the most enjoyable experiences of my life was 
a visit I once paid to Cinchona, at the invitation of the 
director of Public Gardens, Mr. Wm. Fawcett, author of 
a valuable book on the " Economic Plants of Jamaica," 
and to whose intelligent supervision of its parks and gar- 
dens the island is vastly indebted. The estate is called 
Cinchona, from the main purpose for which it was 
founded — to ascertain if that valuable tree could be intro- 
duced with profit into this island. 



I40 OUR WEST INDIAN. NEIGHBORS 

It was found that it could be, and not only that, but 
now it may be seen absolutely running wild in the moun- 
tains everywhere. But it was a parallel case to that of the 
old man who taught his horse to eat shavings, " Just as the 
critter got to liking shavings, it up and died." So with 
cinchona. Just as it became acclimated and it was shown 
that it would grow well in Jamaica, the price went down, 
and now you may have all the " Peruvian bark " you want 
for the asking. However, other things are grown here 
besides cinchona — such, for instance, as tea, coffee, rare 
flowers, and valuable woods. 

One thinks of Jamaica, of course, as being a tropical 
island, where heat and yellow fever reign at least half 
the year and rain and rheumatism the other half. But, 
in fact, it has within its area of 4000 square miles every 
variety of climate and glorious range of scenery that the 
heart of man could desire. One morning, I remember, I 
walked out before breakfast and picked most delicious 
wild strawberries (which, as you know, only grow in a 
temperate climate), and then strolled down into a ravine 
filled with immense tree-ferns, which are never found 
anywhere but in a tropical country. 

It is in this favored section among the hills that the best 
coffee estates are found, above 2000 and 3000 feet ele- 
vation, and from this region is sent out the famous Blue 
Mountain coffee, which commands the highest price in the 
London markets. I mention this fact to show the wide 
range not only of a climate, but of productions, open to 
one who might wish to attempt farming or fruit growing 
in this or any other island of similar characteristics. 

Another delightful spot that lingers in memory, linked 
with dinners the like of which no mortal ever surpassed, 
is King's House, the official residence of the Governor 



THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 141 

General, where, at the time I was a guest within its pre- 
cincts. Sir Henry Blake and his charming lady resided. 
Sir Henry went from Jamaica to the far side of the world, 
having been promoted to the governorship of Hong Kong, 
in which little island he may have greater scope for his 
remarkable abilities, but certainly cannot accomplish 
more, in any direction, than he did in Jamaica. 





The Governor & Lady Blake 




request the honour of 




Mr. Ohcr's 




Company at Dinner 




on Saturday, April 4th, at j:^o o'clock. 


King' 


s House. 




An answer is requested 




to the A.D. C. in waiting. 



King's House is a fine old mansion, with a semi- 
detached dining and ballroom, which alone cost $25,000, 
and the grounds around it are well laid out. The Lig- 
uanea Plain, in which are situated the chief attractions 
around Kingston, contains within its limits the noted 
Up-Park Camp, the cantonment of the West India regi- 
ment, and at the foothills is the Hope Garden reservation, 
containing more than 200 acres devoted to tropical 
horticulture. 

Nineteen miles distant from Kingston, out toward Saint 
Catherine's Peak, on the Wag- Water River, is the Gov- 
ernment's greatest botanic station, Castleton Gardens, 
where tropical arboriculture is carried out on an exten- 
sive scale. The three stations of Castleton, Hope, and 
Cinchona form a combined system which vies with, per- 



142 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

haps surpasses, the tropical gardens of Trinidad, while 
Cuba has nothing to equal it. 

Mention has been made of Spanish Town, the original 
La Vega of the Spaniards, which is only a dozen miles 
from Kingston, by rail, on the banks of the Rio Cobre. It 
was once the seat of government, and the find old build- 
ings are here that were once occupied by the colonial offi- 
cials, also the oldest cathedral in the British colonies. 
Spanish Town has a charm all its own, but it savors 
chiefly of the antique. Owing to its quietude and the 
great number of tombs and mural tablets in its old cathe- 
dral, it is frequently called a city of the dead ; but might 
well become a cheerful place of residence. One of its 
ornaments is a statue of Lord Rodney, in a temple of 
great artistic merit, flanked by two of the brass guns 
taken from the " Ville de Paris," in 1781. This statue 
was once walked off to Kingston, and there set up facing 
the harbor ; but returned to its original foundation when 
Spanish Town protested. 

Do not omit going to view the beauties of the Bog- 
Walk, when you are in Spanish Town, for they are abso- 
lutely unrivaled. The Bog- Walk, negro-English for 
Boca del Agiia, is a beautiful gorge of the Rio Cobre, 
where (the talented Lady Brassey once wrote), one finds 
" everything that makes scenery lovely — wood, water, 
and the wildest luxuriance of tropical foliage, mingled 
and arranged by the artistic hands of Nature in one of 
her happiest moods." 

Still farther up fhe river (which is one of the most 
picturesque streams in Jamaica), is found a veritable 
natural bridge, the giant key-stone of which is about 60 
feet above the water and draped with beautiful vines. 
Not the least of Rio Cobre's attractions is the hotel that 



THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 143 

bears its name, from which, and from the several board- 
ing-houses in and near the town, many pleasant excur- 
sions may be taken. 

By means of the railroads and highways, the fascinat- 
ing interior country of Jamaica has been thrown open to 
the traveler, who may journey without discomfort to such 
quaint and quiet places as Saint Thomas in ye Vale, 
Mandeville (hymns in praise of which have been loudly 
sung by Froude and others), Moneague, and the won- 
derful " Cockpit Country " in the limestone region, with 
its abysmal pits and caverns. 

If you have time, visit the bunch of parishes, Saint 
Thonias, Portland, St. Mary, and St. Ann, in and near the 
eastern end of the island. One might, it seems to me, 
spend a week or two in any one of them. The Blue 
Mountain range forms the boundary chiefly between 
Portland and St. Thomas, hence numerous rivers descend 
to the sea on either side, north and south, all of them pic- 
turesque and some of them historic. A deep inlet in the 
south shore of Saint Thomas is Morant Bay, famous in 
modern times as the chief seat of the great rebellion of 
1865, led by the colored man, Gordon, in whose defense 
Froude pleads eloquently, but whose memory is not held 
very sacred in Jamaica. The man who caused him to be 
hanged, and who was afterward tried for his " murder," 
Governor Eyre, had been a famous explorer in Australia, 
and passed his old age in retirement in England. 

North of Morant Bay, a few miles, on Garden River 
(probably so called on account of the first botanic garden 
in Jamaica having been established here, in 1774), is 
Bath, a pretty little hamlet famous for its thermal springs 
and mineral waters. The waters here are said to be effi- 
cacious in the cure of rheumatism, skin diseases, etc., and 



144 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

one writer mentions that their continued use " sometimes 
produces almost the same joyous effect as inebriation, on 
which account some notorious topers have quit their 
Hquors for a while and come to the springs to enjoy the 
singular felicity of getting drunk with water! " Another 
famous spa of the island is that of Milk River, to the 
southwest of Kingston, while still another is to be found 
not far from the city, to the northward. 

On the way to Bath we have passed the one-time resi- 
dence of a notorious native of the island. Three-fingered 
Jack, whose cave up the ravine of Cane River with its 
attractive falls is only ten or twelve miles from Kingston. 
Three-fingered Jack had an eye for the beautiful, and also 
to business, when he located there and plied his nefarious 
calling of highwayman on the Kingston-Morant road, 
where he used to hold up the passing travelers. He was 
killed by a Maroon, who was given therefor by Govern- 
ment a pension of twenty povmds a year for life — and he 
lived to a good old age, after the manner of pensioners 
and charity dependents all over the world. 

On the Yallahs River, about halfway between Kings- 
ton and Port Morant, may be seen " Judgment Cliff," 
which is the remaining half of a mountain split by the 
great earthquake of 1692. It is a thousand feet in height, 
and though produced by a cataclysm of nature, by the 
natives is held to have been caused for the special pun- 
ishment of a depraved Dutchman, a planter, who was 
buried beneath the fallen half of the mountain. 

Around on the east point of the island is Manchioneal 
Bay, which was once the scene of adventures in " Tom 
Cringle's Log," and inland from this point, over behind 
the John Crow Mountains, lies the once-famous Moore 
Town, chief settlement of the Jamaica Maroons. The 



THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 145 

Maroons, as my readers may or may not know, had their 
origin in the Spanish slaves who ran away from their 
masters at the time the Enghsh took the island, about the 
middle of the seventeenth century. They fled to the 
mountains, and there they stayed, and their descendants 
after them, though the best of English soldiers chased 
them about for a hundred years. In the year 1733 two 
full regiments of regular troops, besides all the militia of 
the island, were searching for them ; but they never took 
a prisoner or killed many of these wily blacks, who them- 
selves neither gave quarter nor asked it of their pursuers. 

Their leader was an uncouth dwarf named Cud joe, 
and their retreat in the mountains was known as Nanny 
Town. Cud joe was a pagan and, with all his followers, 
worshiped the African deities of obeah, or the gods of 
sorcery-working wizards. At one time the troops were 
on their trail for nine successive years, and yet at the end 
of tha,t time the Maroons were more numerous than at the 
beginning, owing to accessions from runaway slaves. 

Old Cudjoe himself was said to be in league with the 
devil. He looked like the devil anyway, the soldiers said, 
and fought like the devil, too. Many a time did he draw 
the white troops into an ambush in the wild ravines, only 
to slaughter them like sheep, till the streams ran with 
blood and but few survivors escaped. 

Moore Town is situated in the parish of Portland, the 
chief city of which is Port Antonio, which ranks second 
only to Kingston in business, and leads it in bustling 
enterprise. Many of the Maroons, whose ancestors were 
never so happy as when " potting " the whites, are now 
engaged in raising bananas for the United Fruit Com- 
pany, which owns the principal portion of Port Antonio, 
and indeed of the parish, if not of the island. 



146 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

The really historic parish of Jamaica is that of Saint 
Ann, on the north coast about midway the island, the 
scenery, also, being all that the heart of man could desire. 
" Earth has nothing more lovely than its pastures and 
pimento groves," says an old writer ; " nothing more 
enchanting than its hills and vales, delicious in verdure 
and redolent with the fragrance of spices." One should 
ramble beneath the spicy pimento trees, inhaling the deli- 
cious odors, and gaze out seaward over the rounded hills 
and pasture-lands. The largest falls in the island, those 
of Roaring River, are in this parish, almost within sound 
of the sea, and they are also among the most beautiful 
cascades to be found in the world. 

THE INSTITUTE OF JAMAICA 

Owing to the success which attended Mr. Ober's recent lecture 
on the Chicago Exhibition, the Governors of the Institute have 
invited that gentleman to read a paper on the Voyages of Colum- 
bus, a subject which he has studied for many years. Mr. Ober 
is shortly about to make investigations in St. Ann's as to Colum- 
bus's residence in Jamaica, and he hopes to be able to comply 
with the invitation before he leaves the island. The paper will 
treat especially on the West Indian portion of the great Ex- 
plorer's travels. — The Colonial Standard and Jamaica Despatch, 
Monday, April 20, 189 1. 

This reference to Columbus, the discoverer of Jamaica, 
reminds me that the island has fared full well, so far as 
having been visited by distinguished men is concerned. 
There were some, like the infamous Sir Henry Morgan, 
who came with evil intent, to be sure ; but he and his 
companion buccaneers contributed to the enrichment of 
Jamaica, and now they have gone to their rewards, the 
island gets the benefit of the fine halo of romance they left 
behind them. This, viewed as an asset, counts for some- 







Qs; 






O 



THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 147 

thing with the tourists, and so does the site of Port Royal, 
once " the world's wickedest city," and on that account 
well worth visiting. 

Sir William Phipps, the New England Yankee who 
recovered so many tons of silver from sunken Spanish 
galleons off the coast of Santo Domingo, outfitted at Port 
Royal, and the Duke of Albemarle, who was then Royal 
Governor, obtained the (British) lion's share of the plun- 
der. Sir Hans Sloane, putative founder of the British 
Museum, came out with Albemarle, resided in the island 
two years, 1685-86, and wrote the Natural History of 
Jamaica, which was published in 1707-25. 

The best work on the birds of Jamaica is by Philip 
Henry Gosse, whose fascinating book was published in 
185 1. Since the days of Gosse, and especially since those 
of Sloane, the natural history of the island has changed 
considerably, owing to the introduction and pernicious 
activity of the mongoose ; but there are still some birds 
of fine plumage, hosts of butterflies, fourteen kinds of 
fire-beetles, a few species of harmless snakes, lizards, 
iguanas, alligators, and fresh-water fishes. 

Some of the streams are cold enough to be the haunts 
of trout, but the only game fish is the mountain mullet, 
which on occasions rises to a fly with dash and vigor. 
The hunting is not good, being confined to wild pigeons, 
doves, alligators, and water-fowl ; but the sea adjacent to 
the coast furnishes a great variety of fish which may be 
taken with hook and line. It is in its botanical and 
marine treasures that Jamaica excels, and particularly in 
the number of its ferns can hardly be surpassed. 

It can hardly be claimed for the blacks of Jamaica, who 
are about forty times as numerous as the whites, that they 
have produced any remarkable intellects, like the famous 



148 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

black Chief Justice of Barbados ; but as a class they are 
shrewd and by no means ignorant. The island is well 
provided with schools, there being about a thousand 
public and free, which are universally attended, besides 
several training colleges, private and denominational. 
Churches, there are, everywhere, and well-attended, espe- 
cially by the black and colored people, who, of a Sunday, 
may be seen trooping over the roads in country and town, 
clad in their brightest raiment and wearing their broadest 
smiles. 

In Jamaica, perhaps more than in any other British 
island of the West Indies, we find a deal of wisdom in 
the utterances of the black people, who display some 
knowledge of the world and human nature. 

It is now 70 years since the Jamaica negroes were 
emancipated and 100 since the blacks drove the French 
out of Haiti ; yet neither people has made any great 
advance, notwithstanding the efforts of priests and par- 
sons, schools, and enlightened paternal governments. 

But the negro has shown himself virile and long suffer- 
ing, forgetful of the wrongs done him during the past of 
slavery. And he has evolved a distinct school of philos- 
ophy, as evinced by certain proverbs, of which a few of 
the choicest are appended: 
" Alligator lay egg, but him no fowl." 
" Ants foUer fat " — no smoke without some fire. 
" Bad family better dan empty pigsty." 
" Beggar beg from beggar, him neber git rich." 
" Behind dawg, you say ' dawg ; ' befo' him, ' Mistah Dawg.' " 
" Better fo' fowl say ' dawg dead ' dan fo' dawg say ' fowl 
dead ' " — because dog can kill fowl, while the latter is harmless. 
" Big blanket mek man sleep late." 
" Braggin' riber neber drown somebuddy." 
" Brown man's wife eat cackroach in corner " — does something 
underhand. 



THINGS TO BE SEEN IN JAMAICA 149 

"Buckra work neber done" — buckra (white man) an African 
word. 

" Bull horn neber too heaby fo' he head." 

" Cashew neber bear guaba " — can't gather figs of thistles. 

" Cane no grow like grass." 

" Cedar bo'd laugh after dead man " — cedar is used for 
cofiEns. 

"Cockroach neber in de right befo' fowl" — might makes. right. 

" Coward man keep whole bone." 

" Crab no walk, him no get fat ; walk too much, him lose he 
claw." 

" ' Come see me ' is nuttin, but ' Come lib wiv me ' is sometin." 

" Crab walk too much, him get in kutakoo " — kutakoo is a 
kind of crab soup. 

" Cuss-cuss neber bore hole in 'kin " — hard words break no 
bones. 

" Cow lose him tail, Goramighty brush fly f er um " — the Lord 
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. 

" Cotton tree fall down, nannygoat jump ober um." 

" Dawg no eat dawg " — honor among thieves. 

" Don't care keep big house." 

" Ebry dawg know he dinner time." 

" Full belly tell hungry belly take heart." 

" Goat say him hab wool ; sheep say him hab hair." 

" Greedy puppy neber fat." 

" Habee-habee no wantee ; wantee-wantee no habee " — waste 
not, want not. 

" If snakes bite yo', when yo' see lizard yo' run." 

" Ebry John Crow t'ink he own pickney white " — our own 
child's the best. 

" Little crab hole spoil big race horse." 

" Little watah kill big fiah." 

These are only a few of the numerous proverbs current 
among the black inhabitants of these islands ; but they 
show, as I stated at the beginning, that the negro has a 
shrewd wisdom all his own; that there is something to 
him, for, as he himself has said : 

" You neber see empty bag 'tan' up." 



IX 
IN THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 

How to reach Haiti and Santo Domingo from Jamaica — Port 
au Prince, capital of Haiti — Where one's room is preferred 
to his company — The late President Hyppolite and Fred 
Douglass — Why colored men are sent to Haiti by our Gov- 
ernment — The island as God made it — And as the black 
man has defiled it — The Haitian army and police — Cape 
Haitien the northern capital — Where the flagship of Colum- 
bus was wrecked — Sans Souci, La Ferriere, the Black 
King's palace and castle — The vale of Millot — Tortuga the 
buccaneers' island — Historic spots on the Haiti-Santo 
Domingo coast — Val de Paraiso — Aborigines and abori- 
ginal names — Origin of the term Hispaniola — Rise of the 
filibusteros — How the Haitians maintain a standard of color 
— Are the Dominicans color-blind? — Expelled by the guillo- 
tine route — White man has no rights in Haiti which the 
black man is bound to respect — Perils of politicians — What 
Hyppolite did to the cobbler — My acquaintance with tvCo 
despots — Great undeveloped resources — Fanatical natives — 
May a woman eat her own children? 

STEAMERS of the Royal Mail line sail among the 
islands, and if tourists wish to visit the ports of 
Haiti or Santo Domingo, they may be taken along 
either the north or the south coast. Jacmel, Port 
au Prince, and Cape Haitien were once beautiful places, 
but the long period- of negro domination has ruined 
them utterly, and there are no acceptable accommo- 
dations in any part of either Haiti or Santo Domingo. 
This is all the more regrettable, as they possess great 
natural charms, and here also are to be seen the historic 

150 



THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 151 

spots identified with the discovery and settlement of 
America, such as Isabella, the first town, and Santo 
Domingo, capital city of the Spanish portion of the island. 

There are many objects worthy of inspection; but in 
both portions of this island, the western half of which is 
occupied by the Haitians, and the eastern by the Domin- 
icans, the roads are mere trails, full of holes which are 
pools of water and mud in the rainy season, and pitfalls 
for man and beast in the dry. 

The distance from Kingston to Port au Prince is 276 
miles, but on arriving in the beautiful bay and getting a 
near view of the squalid city that straggles along shore, 
one might imagine himself in a different world. A dif- 
ferent world, indeed, it is, for the people are French in 
speech and habitudes, and there is an air about them 
which plainly tells you they vastly prefer your room to 
your company. You may land if you like, they seem to 
say; but the sooner you leave the better: a feeling you 
soon entertain without suggestion. 

As to Port au Prince, I can bear testimony respecting 
its utter filthiness, and agree with a recent resident there 
that it may bear away the palm of being the most foul- 
smelling and consequently fever-stricken city in the 
world. " Everyone throws his refuse before his door, so 
that heaps of manure and every species of rubbish incum- 
ber the way. The gutters are open, pools of stagnant 
water obstruct the street everywhere, and receive con- 
stant accession from the inhabitants using them as cess- 
pools and sewers. There are a few good buildings in 
town, and none in the country, the torch of the incendiary 
being constantly applied, and no encouragement is offered 
to rebuild, through the protection of government or local 
enterprise." 



152 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

These incendiary fires are continually occurring, and 
are usually certain precursors of revolts or revolutions. 
The few foreigners in Haiti are there only on sufferance, 
and, though the opportunities for making large fortunes 
are many, yet few merchants have ever come away with 
much, for it usually happens that about the time a depart- 
ure is contemplated an incendiary fire sweeps off the 
accumulations of years, or the stores and warehouses are 
plundered by revolutionists. 

There is a hotel in the Champ de Mars, not far from 
the President's Palace, where I have been entertained 
fairly well, in days gone by; and in the Palace I was 
once received by the late President Hyppolite, when at 
the height of his power and but two weeks before he put 
to death more than two hundred of his opponents. It 
was thought then that the occasion justified the means 
employed, for it was either Hyppolite or his enemies, 
and the. former chose to make corpses of his foes. 

Frederick Douglass was minister at Port au Prince at 
the time of my visit, and his secretary was a former 
minister, Mr. Bassett, who at the time of Saget's deposi- 
tion, when men were massacred by scores, sheltered more 
than five hundred people and saved them from being shot ; 
an act of humanity for which he was never reimbursed. 
Like the present President of Haiti, Hyppolite, the tyrant, 
was big, blue-black of hue, and an old soldier. 

These two representatives of the negro race were such 
striking contrasts that one instinctively asked himself if 
a common descent were, possible, for Hyppolite resembled 
very much a barbaric African potentate, while Douglass 
was a polished scholar and quite a man of the world. I 
often tried to get from the latter an expression of his 
opinion as to the much-vaunted " success " of the Haitian 



THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 153 

civilization, but never succeeded, for the diplomat was 
wary and would not commit himself. 

It has been our custom, of late, to send out colored 
men to Haiti as minister and consuls ; but the Haitians 
themselves do not like it overmuch, notwithstanding the 




■^^ ^^^ 



NISSAGE-SAGET 




HYPPOLITE 

men are able and excellent ; for they look around the 
world and perceive no colored men as representatives in 
other lands, and ask why we do not treat all alike. They 
used to ask this question, in their ignorance not under- 
standing the exigencies of American politics, and the 
necessity for our Executive to provide for his colored 
friends and voters in some way without giving too great 
offense to the preponderating white vote. As few white 
men who have been in Haiti once ever care to go again, 
it is perfectly safe to send the colored office-seeker there. 



154 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Cut the Haitians, in their vanity, have at last imagined 
that the real reason is because the white man is not good 
enough for them ! Let it go at that, for Haitian vanity 
is something so stupendous that to combat it would be a 
futile task. 

As God made it, Haiti is a dream of delight; as the 
black man has defiled it, no white person can live there 
and be content. Provided the roads were good — though 
they are not — we might hire horses and a guide and 
strike in from Port au Prince for the Dominican terri- 
tory, through the high forests, and by the way of the 
historic Enriquillo country, where at one time lived the 
innocent Indians whom the Spaniards exterminated. 

A glimpse of what God did for Haiti before the white 
man brought hither the black pagan from Africa may be 
obtained by short rides into the country ; but in the town 
there is nothing worth an effort to see, except it be the 
" palace " and the cathedral, the ragged soldiery, who 
obtrude themselves ever\^where, and the equally disreput- 
able police, also disagreeably ubiquitous and persistent 
as beggars. 

Many of the soldiers are stationed about the President's 
palace in the Champ de Mars. The latter is a large 
plaza which more resembles a vacant city lot than a pub- 
lic parade ground, being totally devoid of vegetation and 
incumbered with all sorts of rubbish peculiar to the aver- 
age vacant lot, including the goat and the tomato can. 

The building itself is large, but unpretentious, built 
of brick and wood, on- the seaward side of the Champ de 
Mars. A company of ragged soldiers is always on 
guard, no matter who the presidential incumbent may 
happen to be, and a Catling gun is mounted in the lower 
hall in close proximity to some neglected but beautiful 



THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 155 

statuary, relics of a past age when one of the excutives 
had a spasm of refinement and undertook to. embelHsh 





the palace. The white marbles to-day are soiled with 



156 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the finger marks of the dirty soldiery who lounge about 
on guard, but otherwise they have not received much 
attention. 

The soldiers are nearly all barefooted, clad in ragged 
regimentals, and carry their guns like so much " cord- 
wood." Once in a while one of the numerous generals 
comes around and shouts " Attention ! " when such of the 
soldiers as are within hearing shuffle up in an irregular 
line, dragging their guns behind, and go through what 
they fondly believe is a drill, as prescribed by great tac- 
ticians. Then, this over, they lounge back again to their 
favorite pastime of drawing circles in the sand with their 
toes, or shooting craps. 

When off duty, the Haitian soldier sometimes puts in 
his time begging from passersby on the streets, pleading 
as an excuse that his pay is in arrears and he will have 
to wait till the next revolution for a chance to get even. 
As this is generally the truth, or at all events quite a 
reasonable assumption, the soldier sometimes does very 
well by waylaying people on the street corners and solicit- 
ing from door to door. 

English, French, and American steamers touch in at 
all ports on Haiti's coast, and communication is frequent 
between Port au Prince and Cape Haitien, the northern 
capital. On the way, the beautiful island of Gonaive, in 
the Gulf of Leogane, is passed, and at the extreme 
northw^est of the main island lies Mole San Nicolas, a 
■ land-locked, natural harbor, of such strategical impor- 
tance that the United States would like to possess it as a 
naval station. 

Cape Haitien is as finely situated as the Port, having 
a grand background of mountains and forest. Its great 
structures erected by the French of the eighteenth century 



THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 157 

are shapeless heaps of brick and stone, while the foun- 
tains they provided are choked, the aqueducts they con- 
structed in ruins, and the gardens they laid out gone to 
decay. There is no good hotel in the place, nor a public, 
scarcely a private, convenience of any sort; the gutters 
are filled with filth, the air tainted with pestilential 
emanations. 

Yet, here at Cape Haitien, great historic events have 
taken place; here Leclerc and thirty thousand of his 
men died of yellow fever ; here the white men were driven 
by the blacks into the sea ; here liberty was proclaimed 
to Haiti, and here lived the black kings who made laws 
and committed massacres unchecked. Out beyond the 
reefs that protect the harbor from the sea, the flagship of 
Columbus, the " Santa Maria," was wrecked, on Christ- 
mas eve, 1492, and over on the shore at Guarico the 
wreckage was collected and the first fort in America 
erected by Europeans. 

Two hours' ride from the Cape are the ruins of Sans 
Souci, the beautiful palace, in a more beautiful valley, 
built by commands of Christophe, the great Black King, 
in the early years of the nineteenth century. Sans Souci 
is situated in the hills above the lovely vale of Millot, with 
a background of tropical forest and a foreground 
sprinkled with palms and the huts of simple cultivators. 
Roofless ruins are the only remains of the palace, and a 
wilderness of tropical plants of the extensive gardens of 
Christophe's time. 

Two hours further back in the hills stands the stu- 
pendous castle-fortress erected by the king as a retreat 
when the French should come to avenge his massacres. 
They never came, having had enough of Haiti ; but there 
Christophe immured hirnself, within walls twenty feet in 



158 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

thickness and a hundred in height, in the long galleries 
and on the parapets mounting more than three hundred 
cannon, most of which may be seen to-day. Here, at last, 
died the great Black King, self-slaughtered by a silver 
bullet driven into his brain. The chamber in which he 
killed himself is shown, also his treasury, where he is 
said to have accumulated thirty million dollars. 

La Ferriere, as the fortress is called, stands upon the 
truncate crest of a steep-sided mountain, in the midst of 
wild forest, yet can be seen from the Cape, from a vessel's 
deck in the bay, one of the grandest, strangest, most 
fascinating of the New World's works in stone and 
mortar. It is a monument of the Haitian civilization at 
its best ; it will never be duplicated. 

Near the coast, at the Cape, the ruins are shown of a 
buccaneer stronghold ; but the real rendezvous of the sea- 
rovers was at Tortuga, the desolate island across channel, 
five miles from Port de Paix. Here such worthies of the 
buccaneer profession as Lollonois, Mansveldt, Morgan, 
and other crime-stained cut-throats made their head- 
quarters during many years, in the last half of the seven- 
teenth century. The island, with its priceless memories 
of Columbus and the buccaneers, belongs to Haiti, and 
has few, if any, permanent inhabitants. These few live 
in huts on the sands and spend their time in fishing, 
turtling, and searching for the pirates' treasures, said to 
be concealed in the caves. 

It was in the guise of privateers, and then as iilihus- 
teros, or buccaneers, -that the alien invaders of the 
Caribbean Sea first worried the Spaniards, and in 1530 
one of their great Dons stirred up a veritable hornet's 
nest when he drove the French and English buccaneers 
from the Island of Saint Kitts. For, deprived of their 



THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 159 

possessions there, their plantations and fishing privileges, 
they turned pirates and made a rendezvous at Tortuga, 
off the north coast of Haiti. Some of them, mainly of 
French extraction, settled in the larger island, where they 
led a semi-savage existence, hunting the wild cattle which, 
sprung from Spanish stock, roamed the fields and forests 
by the thousand. 

These, in fact, were the original buccaneers, the name -^y' 
itself being derived from their practicing of "boucan- 
ning," or smoking, the flesh of the wild cattle, after the 
manner of the Carib Indians, over an open fire of sticks 
and leaves. They were in partnership with the Hilbtisteros 
proper, who derived their supplies from them, and divided 
with them their Spanish spoils. Many a treasure-laden 
galleon, floimdering through the Windward Passage 
between Cuba and Haiti, was captured by these buc- 
caneers, who generally took their treasures to Tortuga, 
where they held high revel over their ill-gotten wealth. 

The buccaneers lasted for quite half a century, the last 
great haul they made being at the sack of Panama, 1671, 
when Morgan (afterwards Sir Henry, and governor of 
Jamaica), secured enough to enable him to settle down 
to a respectable mode of life. Something more than a 
quarter-century later, or at the Peace of Ryswick, 1697, 
the French were confirmed in possession of the third of 
the island, now known as Haiti, although the boundary 
line between French and Spanish territory was not actu- 
ally delimited until about the middle of the next century. 

This boundary has often been crossed, by one party or 
the other ; but not in recent times ; and is at present re- 
spected by both the Haitians and Dominicans. The 
wonder is that, during the frequent " revolutions " of the 
century past, the respective territories have not been more 



i6o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

frequently invaded and the island devastated by interne- 
cine slaughter. The reason for this forbearance may be 
shown in a study of conditions prevailing there. 

There is no doubt as to the courage of these Haitian- 
Dominicans, since, so far as their white ancestry is con- 
cerned — although it may now be considered, perhaps, as 
a negligible factor — we have on one side the remote 
descendants of the fierce buccaneers, and on the other the 
equally remote descendants of valiant conquistadores. 

This process of elimination began when the French 
colonists were *' expelled " (to make use of Minister 
Leger's innocuous euphemism) from the country about 
a century ago, and is still going on. That those white 
colonists were " expelled " by the guillotine route, — at 
least, beheaded, — burnt alive, and sawn asunder, is neither 
here nor there. If the question were raised, the Haitians 
would doubtless tell you that their revolutionary ancestors 
acquired the custom from their masters, and merely gave 
them a dose of their own medicine. At any rate it was 
effective, for not one of them has ever returned to plague 
the Haitians by their presence in the flesh. What they 
did to Dessalines, Christophe, and others whom the white 
people called tyrants and monsters, and the blacks re- 
garded as heroes, has not been recorded. But it is certain 
that Christophe, the great Black King, committed suicide 
by shooting himself in the head with a silver bullet, and 
that tradition relates he was moved thereto by the spooks 
he saw, mainly of the white variety, in his magnificent 
palace of Sans Sbuci. 

The rare perspicacity shown by the Haitians, in not 
only expelling the white man from their republic, but in 
passing laws which forbid him to acquire any realty 
whatever, — except he be married to a black woman, — has 










o 

«3 






THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS i6i 

not been evinced by the Dominicans ; neither have they 
been so acutely discriminative in their slaughterings. 
They have not withheld their hands from the sword — or 
rather from the pistol and machete — but perhaps they may 
be " color blind" ; they have gone on with their blood- 
letting wholly regardless as to the complexion a man may 
have when in life. 

When the late lamented Hyppolite was in high feather 
as President of Haiti, he, one day, in riding down a side 
street of Port au Prince, saw a poor cobbler sitting on a 
bench. The cobbler also saw him, and though Hyppolite 
was in a general's uniform (and " generals " compose 
nine-tenths of the " army "), he did not know he was gaz- 
ing at the august Executive. But he instinctively re- 
moved his hat, and then went on with his work. It 
" riled " the President to see a man working, and so busy 
that he hadn't time to rise from his bench, and he called 
two of- his soldiers. " Take that man away from his 
work," he commanded. He was taken away. 

" Now, take him off and shoot him," was the next 
order. This was done, and the President's affronted 
dignity was appeased. 

This is a tale they tell in Port au Prince — now that 
Hyppolite is dead. They would not dare tell it when he 
was alive, though it may be just as true now as it ever 
was. I met this despot of a decade ago, and 
was much impressed with his dignified bearing. I also 
met and was very friendly with another " late lamented " 
hero, or tyrant (as the case may be). General Ulises 
Heureaux, former President of Santo Domingo. 

Just how many successors they have had since is a 
matter of no consequence, for the present Executive of the 
republic will (in fact, he must) carry on the policy of his 



i62 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

predecessor. Haiti is getting blacker and blacker, if it be 
possible (the white element having almost arrived at the 
vanishing-point) ; and if Santo Domingo is not getting 
whiter, it is not the fault of either the man for the moment 
in power, — nor of the fiscal and other agents of that 
country, who do not stint the " whitewash " brush at all. 

It is when the one country or the other desires to raise 
a loan, that protests begin to appear in the press anent the 
" mother goose " stories respecting the voodoo, cannibal- 
ism, etc., etc., which are repeatedly told of the Haitians. 
In other words, both peoples are wholly regardless of 
what the white man thinks or does, so long as he furnishes 
the dincro for the exploitation of their beloved country — 
by and for the natives, of course. 

That each country is rich in undeveloped resources, of 
gold, copper, to some extent iron and coal, and with vast 
treasure in its cabinet and dye woods, everyone who has 
passed through their wonderful forests can testify. The 
difficulties in the way of exploiting the hidden treasures ' 
of both republics lie, as intimated, in the peculiarities of 
the inhabitants. In no country of the world will greater 
hospitality of a certain sort be shown than in Elaiti or 
Santo Domingo ; in no vast forest region will the lone 
traveler (speaking generally) be safer than in the interior 
of that beautiful island. 

But the " exception " might appear in the shape of a 
bullet, or of a machete cut from some fanatical native 
resident in the mountains who had not seen a white man 
often enough to know him from a rhinoceros, and who 
would naturally give himself the benefit of the doubt! 
As to the propensity (alleged) of the Haitians to pilfer 
from the treasury, it may be remarked that it is their 
treasury, and so long as those who actually suffer do not 



THE BLACK AND BROWN REPUBLICS 163 

complain, why should the casual resident or new arrival ? 
As an old-timer of Port an Prince once remarked to the 
writer: "What's the difference between our beloved 
President, who ' feather his nest,' and then skeep to 
Jamaica, and your great Monsieur Crokair, who do the 
same and skeep to Eengland? Ha, 3^ou geeve it up, eh? 
Well, it ees this, inon cher ami. Our beloved President, 
he steal some millions, and he skeep — but he nevair come 
back again no more ! If he do we shoot him dead ! But 
as for your Monsieur Crokair — eef he come back, you go 
to meet him with the brass-band, the fireworks, and the 
' glad hand.' Is it not so ? " 

After all, why should it concern us what the Haitians 
take from other Haitians — peradventure they do so? 
A woman belonging in the alleged voodoo sect, who was 
indicted for devouring her own children at a cannibal 
ceremony in honor of the " great green serpent," 
naively remarked : " Well, what if I did ? They were 
my children, and who had a better right ? " 

What an outspoken editor of a local paper, the Gazette 
du Peuple, wrote more than twenty years ago applies to 
the condition of affairs in Haiti to-day : " For sixty- 
eight years, or from the date of our national existence, 
what have we done ? Nothing, or almost nothing. All our 
constitutions are defective, all our laws are incomplete, 
our customs badly administered, our navy is detestable, 
our police ill-organized, our army in a pitiable state, our 
finances rotten to the base, the legislative power is not 
understood and never will be, the primary elections are 
neglected, and our people do not feel their importance. 
Nearly all our public edifices are in ruins ; the public in- 
struction is almost entirely abandoned." 



X 

HAITI, THE "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 

Aboriginal name of the island — Altitudes of its mountains — 
Description by an old writer — A country to be avoided — 
The Black Republic, according to Saint John — Where Voo- 
dooism flourishes and cannibalism is said to be practiced — 
Land of the loup-garoti — The "goat without horns" — An 
American botanist on Haiti — Toussaint I'Ouverture not now 
revered in Haiti as of old — Because he is a colored man, not 
black — Tribes from which the Haitian negroes descended — 
The basis of their language the Congo tongue — the family 
that introduced the serpent worship — When the first slaves 
were taken to Haiti-Santo Domingo — A brief revolutionary 
chronicle — When the Haitians expelled the French with 
"Yellow Jack" to aid them — Their policy of isolation — 
Where the white man is discredited ; though the black 
female sometimes marries him — How the aristocracy has 
suffered — Haitian revolutions are " family affairs," and the 
whites must not intrude — But they sometimes are slain by 
stray bullets — A list of Haiti's various rulers — Some of 
them served out their terms — Nineteen rulers, including one 
" king," one " emperor," and seventeen despots. 

THE aboriginal name of the island, signifying the 
high, or mountainous country, describes it in 
a single word. The island of Hispaniola, or 
Haiti-Santo Domingo, contains 28,250 square miles, of 
which 10,200 square miles, or a little more than one- 
third, is comprised in the Haitian portion. Not only 
is this the most mountainous island of the West Indies, 
but it can boast the highest peaks in the Antilles, for the 
dominating peak of the Cibao, or central cordillera, Monte 
Tina, is estimated to be over 11,000 feet in altitude, ex- 

164 



HAITI, "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 165 

ceeding Turquino of Cuba and the Blue Mountain Peak 
of Jamaica by more than 3000 feet. 

Given, then, a congeries of cloud-piercing mountains 
surrounded by a tropical sea, with ever-blowing winds 
beating against their peaks and slopes, the moisture con- 
densed from which furnishes nourishment for forests of 
perennial verdure, with deep ravines and smiling valleys, 
through which course roaring rivers, rippling streams, 
and you have the essentials for what Haiti veritably is, a 
natural paradise. 

Says an English gentleman of high attainments, one 
who resided in Haiti in official capacity for more than 
twenty years : " I have traveled in almost every quarter of 
the globe, and I may say that, taken as a whole, there is 
no finer island than that of Santo Domingo-Haiti. No 
country possesses greater capabilities, or a better geo- 
graphical position, more variety of soil, of climate, and of 
production, with magnificent scenery of every descrip- 
tion, and hillsides where the pleasantest of health-resorts 
might be established." 

" And yet," he goes on to say, " it is now the country to 
be most avoided, ruined as it is by a succession of self- 
seeking politicians, without honesty or patriotism, content 
to let the people sink to the condition of an African tribe, 
that their own selfish passions may be gratified." 

In other words, the gifts of nature have not been appre- 
ciated as they should have been, and there seems to have 
been a perversion of the divine intent : that the best gifts 
of God should go to those best capable of appreciating 
them. Here in Haiti we have an Eden, no doubt ; but 
also a serpent, collectively represented by the black popu- 
lation, and specifically by the African sorcery of the 
Voodoo, or Vaudoux. 



i66 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

That is, the gentleman just quoted would have it appear 
so, for he is no other than Sir Spencer Saint John, one- 
time Her Britannic Majesty's minister resident at Port au 
Prince, and whose book, " The Black Republic," contains 
a scathing arraignment of the Haitians, together with 
details of the revolting practices of the Vaudoux and the 
cannibals, who reside in the most beautiful country that 
America can boast. It was published fifteen years ago, 
yet the circumstantial accounts narrated in this book of 
horrors have never been refuted. In fact, no one who 
has visited Haiti and remained there any length of time 
can escape the conviction that voodooism, and occasion- 
ally cannibalism, are still practiced by the people living in 
districts remote from the coast and important centers of 
population. 

This is not saying that all, nor any large porportion, of 
the Haitians, follow the precepts of the sorcerers, the 
serpent-worshipers ; but that they have permeated the 
population in every direction. The writer has had occa- 
sion to verify these accounts of Saint John (not the 
" Divine," if you please, — in Haiti) in conversation with 
respectable residents of Port au Prince and Cape Haitien, 
few of whom had the hardihood to deny the existence of 
the evils described. 

There is too deep a belief in the almost preternatural 
power of the papa-lois and maman-lois (high priest and 
priestess of the Vaudoux), and the dread of the terrible 
loup-garou — the h.uman hyena that kidnaps children, 
buries them alive, and then resurrects them for the sacri- 
fices — is too pervasive and real, to permit of denial by 
those who have to live in Haiti and endure the evils they 
cannot remedy. 

The Haitians will tell you that it is none of your busi- 







tr; 



-^ 



13 



as 



HAITI, "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 167 

ness, and that, at all events, you should not try to attract 
attention to the bad qualities of a few, to the exclusion of 
their innumerable virtues. Perhaps this is true, for that 
the natives of Haiti have many virtues, and among them 
those of hospitality and generosity, no one who has lived 
among them will deny. So, let us content ourselves with 
merely mentioning the fact that the Voodoo does exist in 
the island, that it is probably a survival of African fetich- 
ism, and that the worship of the serpent (the great green, 
harmless snake of the island) does not necessarily imply 
a belief in cannibalism. Now and then, it is affirmed, in 
the frenzy of the serpent dance, the worshipers will be 
content with nothing less than the sacrifice of the " goat 
without horns," or in other words, a living child; but as 
it is usually a colored or negro child, " furnished for the 
occasion " by some one of the revelers, the white person 
has really no reason for interference — so the Haitians 
say. 

This is, perhaps, an extreme expression of their resent- 
ment at the intrusion of white people into their affairs. 
They cannot understand, inasmuch as they themselves 
remain at home and attend to their own affairs, why the 
white man, or woman, should take a particular interest in 
their home life and customs. 

The Haitians, " according to St. John," are quite as 
black as painted ; and yet he lived for years among them, 
and at last escaped with his life, to malign and traduce 
them — according to the Haitians. He was there in a 
diplomatic capacity, and presumably was not given to 
wandering in the forests looking for spooks. Hear, then, 
the testimony of an American botanist, who visited the 
island in 1903, and who did go into the deep woods and 
live among the primitive people there. 



i68 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

" Haiti," he says, " is a land of vast mountain chains, 
rising 8000 feet in the air, overlapping and entangling 
each other in inextricable confusion ; unpierced by the 
rail, threaded only by bridle paths ; clothed with tremen- 
dous tropical forests, in which splendid hard-wood trees, 
almost worth their weight in gold in the markets of the 
world, fall and die of old age, untouched by the ax. 

" Throughout these mountains are little palm-leaf huts, 
perched on some overhanging cliff, or beside some deep 
ravine, the home of negro peasants, cultivating their 
banana patches and living almost as primitive a life as 
their race sustains in the heart of Africa. It is a land of 
peaks, and these gigantic needles, clear in the morning 
sun, or rising like misty islands from the rolling sea of 
afternoon clouds, make an endless vista of wild and mag- 
nificent mountain scenery. It is a land of gold and silver, 
copper, iron, and coal, of which the surface is hardly 
scratched ; a land of almost infinite possibilities, which is 
not, and never can be, developed under the present condi- 
tions ; a land ruled by black men — not by mulattos, but by 
black men alone. 

" The black intends to keep his country for himself. In 
the capital. Port au Prince, this black man, when high in 
power, will generally be found a cultivated, polished, 
French negro, educated in Paris and a frequent visitor to 
that city, living in a pleasant tropical bungalow, driving 
a handsome turnout, formally calling on the distinguished 
white stranger, and inviting him to dinner. And, back in 
the mountains this black man, perfectly illiterate, still con- 
ducts his Voodoo ceremonies, and makes human sacrifices. 
It is off in these remote regions that the Voodoo prac- 
tices are kept up. Of course, I did not see them ; no white 
man ever does. But everyone in the island admits that 



HAITI, "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 169 

they continue, and with human sacrifice, in spite of the 
Government's efforts to stop them." 

" Of course I did not see them ;" the Haitian points tri- 
umphantly to that admission, and demands that the white 
man produce proof of guilt on the part of the black man. 
But, though he himself saw no human sacrifices, Mr. St. 
John adduces proofs enough in his pages, citing from 
local newspapers, and giving the evidence of at least one 
priest, who saw a child strung up by its feet, and its throat 
cut, when the " goat without horns " was demanded as a 
sacrifice. 

Let -us turn, however, to the more pleasing features of 
life in Haiti, and so far as possible ignore the presence of 
the black man from Africa, whose presence in this para- 
dise is at best an accidental intrusion. He was brought 
here by the white man, as a slave ; and, by a sort of poetic 
justice, it was in this island of Santo Domingo, where 
slavery was first introduced into America, that it was also 
first abolished. The Haitian negro, also, has the credit 
of having been instrumental in abolishing it, when he be- 
came numerous enough, and when the events of the 
French revolution made it possible to form the desirable 
conjunction. Toussaint I'Ouverture was Haiti's George 
Washington ; but as he was a colored man, in whose veins 
ran the blood of the hated " hlanc," he is not held in so 
high esteem as the great Christophe, or as Dessalines, 
(1804-1820), the latter of which precious pair of barbar- 
ians said in his proclamation of 1804: " Your friends, vic- 
tims of the French — why delay to appease their manes? 
What — the ashes of your relations in the grave, and you 
have not avenged them ? " 

That proclamation was issued in the year 1804, January 
first of which year is the date of the Haitian Independ- 



170 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ence, one hundred years ago. Twelve years previously 
both whites and blacks had vied with each other in com- 
mitting atrocities only paralleled by those then transpiring 
in France, and which were the inciting causes in Haiti. 
Both whites and blacks broke their prisoners on the wheel ; 
a white planter was forced to eat his wife's flesh, after she 
had been killed ; and the ears of prominent white planters 
were worn by the blacks as cockades ! 

But, as already mentioned, the blacks were apt pupils 
in the school of atrocity. Originally descended from 
some of the most savage races or families of Africa, 
some thirty in number, they furnished the proper stock 
for the engrafting of scions of the white man's deviltries. 
There were Congos, Senegals, Yolofs, Foulahs, Bam- 
baras, Socos, Sofos, Fantins, Popos, Benins, and a score 
of other families having a common racial origin, nearly 
all from the west coast of the " Dark Continent." The 
basis of their language as spoken now in the Creole dia- 
lect, or patois, is the Congo tongue ; but the language of 
the Vaudoux is Ardra, to which family belongs the honor 
of having introduced the serpent worship into the island. 
While French (and Parisian French, at that) is spoken 
by the better classes, among the common people a Creole 
jargon is used, an abbreviated form of French, in which 
" conjunctions and pronouns are mercilessly sacrificed." 

Slavery was introduced into the Santo Domingo, or 
Spanish, portion of the island in 1506, and into Haiti 
in the seventeenth century. The buccaneers all had 
slaves — all who could afiford them — and as early as 1681 
there is a record of a cargo of African slaves being sold 
for seven hundred pounds of sugar each, " sucking 
infants to go with the mother, without account." 

After Dessalines and Christophe had aped royalty a 



HAITI, "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 171 

a few years, and the island had come under Petion, the 
capital of the mulatto moiety of the republic was virtually 
at Port au Prince for several years, where it actually is 
at the present time. General Boyer, whose father was a 
mulatto tailor and his mother a Congo negress, succeeded 
Petion as dictator, and under him the two halves of Haiti 
were united into one government. His was the longest 
reign the distracted country had experienced, lasting 
twenty-three years. 

After Boyer came the deluge of aspirants to the throne 
or presidential chair — call it what you will — which has 
been the- curse of Haiti to the present time. The blacks 
were royalists by profession, even during the time of the 
directory and the revolution in France, so that the buf- 
foonery of Dessalines and Christophe, when they pro- 
claimed themselves respectively as emperor and king, 
was quite acceptable to the majority of their subjects. At 
heart the Haitians are royalists to-day ; that is, they pre- 
fer the pomp and ceremonials of courts to the plain sim- 
plicity of a republic. They like show and glitter, frills 
and furbelows, gold lace and epaulets, cocked hats and 
cock's feathers, and it was a sad day for the masses when 
the grand marshal, grand almoner, master of ceremonials. 
Knights of Saint Henry, " princes of the blood," dukes, 
counts, barons, chevaliers, etc., were abolished. But for 
their inclination to reduce everybody and everything to 
the dead level of barbarism, they would take to a re- 
establishment of royalty as easily as a duck to water. 

This was proved fifty-five years ago when Soulouque, 
an illiterate and superstitious black, declared himself 
" emperor," under the title of " Faustin I.," and revived 
the old " nobility " of the Marmalades and Limonades. 
But after the novelty had passed the black baby cried for a 



.172 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

new toy, and as their emperor and his court had become 
the laughing stock of the civihzed world, even obtuse and 
impervious Haiti was forced to repudiate him, A revolt 
was successfully conducted by one Geffrard, who not 
many years after followed Soulouque to Jamaica, an exile, 
both having, it was reported, plundered the government 
of millions. Geffrard was a mulatto, but his successor, 
Salnave, was a black soldier, who, " elected " President 
in 1867, was driven from power and shot in his own 
doorway by orders of his successful rival, Saget. 

And so they went, blacks and mulattos alternating, 
few of Haiti's " presidents " ever completing their terms 
of office. Jamaica became the Mecca for ex-presidents 
of Haiti, and there are several there now, who only saved 
their black skins by suddenly crossing the channel and 
putting themselves under the folds of the British flag. 

All the settlers of French extraction having been mur- 
dered, all their property not claimed by their illegitimate 
children was absorbed by the state, and as all the country 
mansions had been destroyed, they can be traced to-day 
only by their ruins.* 

The sugar plantations had been destroyed, and have 
never been restored ; but the coffee trees planted by the 
French, and seedlings from them, still flourish, ,and it is 
chiefly upon their products that the Haitians subsist. 

* " What was the condition of the Haitian negroes a hundred 
years ago? They were slaves. They were treated like beasts. 
They were compelled to work like machines in the field. They 
could not read. They could not write. They were not even 
good artisans, because they were not allowed to learn anything. 
The sanctity of their homes was held at naught and profaned; 
their daughters, their wives, were mere pastime for their white 
masters. Their degradation was complete." — Minister J. N. 
Legcr in the North American Rez'iew. 



HAITI, "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 173 

Even so early as 1805 the crop of the year exceeded 
30,000,000 pounds, or enough to load fifty large ships. 
Add to the coffee crop the logwood and mahogany, the 
natural fruits and vegetables, the fish of the rivers and the 
sea, and take into accounts the glorious climate, that re- 
quires neither clothes nor fuel for the dwellers there, and 
we have some of the requirements for a lazy man's ely- 
sium. 

Some labor is necessary, of course, to cut logwood and 
mahogany, and it requires a little exertion to pick up the 
coffee berries ; but other than this the Haitians of the in- 
terior districts exert themselves hardly at all. The black 
peasantry of the hills bring down the produce of the old 
plantations, where it is taken in hand by the politicians 
who control the customs, and, needless to say, the bulk 
of the proceeds is appropriated. As the only revenue is 
derived from the customs at the ports, the most desirable 
governmental positions are, of course, those that enable 
their occupants to get their hands on the exports and im- 
ports. There is a Haitian proverb that it is no crime to 
steal from the state. " Prendre V argent de I'etat ce n'est 
pas vole." The collector of the port " rules the roost," un- 
til he is removed, or " promoted," when another is given 
a chance to dip into the treasury. No ruler has arisen 
since the emancipation having the interests of the people 
really at heart ; no great public work has ever been under- 
taken for the improvement of the country ; the only struc- 
tures of importance, with very few exceptions, are those 
left by the French, and these are, most of them, in ruins. 
Buildings destroyed by fire or earthquake are never re- 
placed, and the nearest approach to rebuilding is seen in 
the slab shanty leaning against the walls of some large 
structure that has been demolished. 



174 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

We have seen who were the ancestors of the people at 
present dominant in Haiti, who, alwaj's in fear of their 
more powerful white neighbors, have enacted that the 
pale-faces shall not directly acquire any real estate in the 
country. Even if they marry Haitian women they cannot 
inherit any landed property, but only the proceeds of it 
when sold at auction. 

" They can be merchants, artists, mechanics, professors, 
teachers, clerks, and engineers," says a native writer; 
" but are barred from the bench and the bar, military 
honors, and civil distinctions." In social life, however 
(the Creole goes on to assure them), and in callings for 
which they are legally qualified, " they are treated with all 
the courtesy and regard to which their character entitles 
them. Exemplary conduct on their part always enables 
them to overcome the social disadvantages attaching to 
their unfortunate color " — or rather, lack of it ! 

In short, Haiti is the one country in the world v\^here it 
is discreditable to be a white man. Still, it is confidently 
asserted, the colored females manifest a preference for 
suitors of the Caucasian race, notwithstanding this bar 
sinister on their escutcheon, and will marry them despite 
their disabilities — always provided, of course, that they 
have money, and can boast respectable parentage. 

The aristocracy of the island, having suffered consider- 
ably from the weeding-out process so ruthlessly applied 
by the blacks, cannot muster a corporal's guard, at pres- 
ent, the times having sadly changed since the good old 
days of King Henri and the Emperor Faustin I., when 
the dukes of Marmalade and Limonade were flourishing. 
The only one the writer was ever privileged to gaze upon 
was clad in faded and ragged regimentals, very much 
out at the elbows, and mounted on a sorry nag, the visible 




~X3 

o 



as; 

o 

*^ 






HAITI, "HOME OF THE VOODOO" 175 

ribs of which he vainly prodded with enormous spurs 
fixed to bare and bony heels. But he wore a tattered 
chapeau with a rooster's feathers in it, and his ebony 
features were stamped with the dignity descended from 
an immemorial ancestry ! 

It rnay be true, as the Haitians assert, that their frequent 
revolutions are strictly family affairs, and that the for- 
eigner is perfectly safe provided he goes into hiding 
while the fighting continues ; but the fact remains that 
very few foreigners in Haiti ever die of old age ! In a 
land where somebody or other is always out gunning for 
somebody else, there is danger, an ever-present danger, 
of being shot. It may not be with intention ; but therein 
the real danger lies ; for no Haitian was ever known to 
hit what he fired at — though he is sure to hit somebody, 
and that somebody is usually the " highly respected for- 
eigner !" Even an execution is no exception to the rule, 
for if requires whole volleys of musketry to slay one 
solitary victim, and it rarely happens that he does not 
have several innocent attendants to the spirit land, slain 
by bullets that went astray. 

Of Haiti's nineteen rulers, including a " king " and an 
" emperor," and all of them dictators or despots, four, 
only, completed their terms of office ; two died in office ; 
two were killed ; one committed suicide ; one " abdicated " 
(under compulsion); eight were exiled; one is still on 
probation. These facts speak for themselves, and may 
account for the reticence of the Haitians in respect to 
matters political. 

1. Dessalines, killed by his troops, in 1806. 

2. Petion, died in office, in power 12 years, 1818. 

3. Christophe, committed suicide in 1820. 

4. Boyer, exiled, after 23 years in office, 1843. 



176 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

5. Herald Riviere, exiled, after one year, 1844. 

6. Guerrier, died in office, one year, 1845. 

7. Pierrot, elected 1845, abdicated next year. 

8. Riche, proclaimed in 1846, died next year. 

9. Soulouque, elected 1847; "emperor," 1849; exiled 
1859. 

10. Geffrard, president till 1867 ; exiled. 

11. Salnave, president, ousted and shot, 1870. 

12. Nissage-Saget, 1870-74; completed his term. 

13. Domingue, seized government, 1874; expelled, 
1876. 

14. Boisrond-Canal, 1876; expelled from Haiti, 1879. 

15. Salomon, 1879-88; died in exile. 

16. Legitime, 1888, one year, driven out and exiled. 

17. Hyppolite, 1889-96; died in office. Poisoned (?). 

18. Simon Sam, 1896-1903; filled full term and retired. 

19. Nord Alexis, 1903 ; at last accounts in power. 



XI 
MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 

Richly endowed Santo Domingo — How the Indians were mis- 
treated — Santiago, City of the Caballeros — Railroads 
and natural highways — Columbus and the chain of forts he 
built — "Sons of Somebody" subjected to African "Sons 
of Nobody"" — The degradation of the Dominicans — The 
late President Ulises Heureaux, called by his people " Lilis " 
— The despot of Santo Domingo, whose victims were num- 
bered by hundreds — A diplomat, a linguist, and a brute — 
Assassinated by the son of a man he had killed — His unique 
personality — The two curses of the Black and Brown Re- 
publics — African inertia and atavism — Aspirants for the 
presidency in Sto. Domingo — Condition of the government 
to-day, hopelessly bankrupt — What constitutes a " revolu- 
tionist" — A personal view of "Lilis" — An offer to loan 
the bones of Columbus for a consideration — What the con- 
sideration was to be — Official document in proof of the 
assertion that the offer of a loan was made. 

IT seems an anomaly of history that an island boast- 
ing the oldest city on American soil, and among the 
first discovered by Columbus, in 1492, should be 
the least known of the West Indies ; yet this may 
be said of Hispaniola (or Haiti-Santo Domingo), first 
settled between the years 1493 and 1496, and since occu- 
pied by people of a race alien to its aboriginal inhabitants. 
These latter were long ago exterminated, though at the 
time the island was discovered they numbered more than 
a million. Their blood flows in the veins of many an 
islander, but mingled with that of the conquerors, and 

177 



178 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

also merged in that sanguineous stream which tor cen- 
turies followed thitherward from Africa. 

It is not Santo Domingo's fault that it has not occupied 
a more prominent position in American affairs. Richly 
endowed by nature, with the most delightful climate 
imaginable, with a vegetation comprising all the products 
of the tropics and semi-tropics ; streams of purest water 
sparkling in the sun ; hills and headlands presenting the 
most extensive and magnificent views of palm-covered 
plains and varied forests; mountains (the central Cordil- 
leras) rising to the clouds and containing rich deposits of 
gold ; fine harbors, outlets to an interior country of sur- 
passing fertility ; all these it has. Nature has done much 
for Santo Domingo ; it could hardly have done more ; 
and man, also, has done much — all he could, in fact — to 
pervert the evident designs of a beneficent Providence. 

Yes, man has proved recreant to the trust imposed in 
this instance. Beginning with the times of Columbus, 
everything seems to have missed its mark. Apologists 
for Columbus may tell you that he had vast, even insuper- 
able difficulties to contend with ; moralists may animadvert 
upon his career, as an object lesson of what should have 
been avoided ; but the fact remains that Santo Domingo 
fared badly at his hands, and the aborigines fared worse. 
To paraphrase that couplet anent the Pilgrim Fathers : 

The conqiiistadores fell on their knees; 
Then they fell on the aborigines. 

They smote them, hip and thigh ; and, moreover, they 
smote off their heads by basketfuls, it being a common 
practice for those noble hidalgos who came over with and 
shortly after Columbus to try the temper of their 
" Toledos " upon the Indian skull. 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 179 

" It is a fine morning, let's go out and crack a skull," 
seems to have been the customary remark ; at all events, 
the historians tell us that the beheading of Indians was 
their regular matutinal pastime. 

What with the unrestrained inclination of the con- 
quistadores to decimate the aborigines, and the severe 
tasks they imposed upon them in the fields and mines, the 
Indian soon became a negative, then an exceedingly 
scarce, commodity. This term is used advisedly, for the 
poor Indian was considered as something less than the 
lower animals and was bought and sold, as the produce 
of the land. A superficial regard was paid to his soul, 
perhaps, inasmuch as the missionaries (and among them 
the great and good Las Casas, who resided in the island 
many years) entered their protests regularly and called 
down upon the Spaniards the vengeance of Heaven. 

Their protests did not appear to be effectual, however, 
for the exterminating process went on ; the system of 
encomiendas was carried from Santo Domingo to Cuba, 
thence to Yucatan and Mexico ; to the Spanish Main and 
Peru. For Cortes, Pizarro, Balboa, and many other 
Spaniards whose names are now secure in Fame's temple, 
had their first training in Santo Domingo. It was not 
only the colonizing center of the then New World, but 
also the home of its barbarities, in which the conquista- 
dores, many of them, first fleshed their swords ; first 
spilled the blood of innocent, inoffensive Indians. 

If one would know how, at least in one instance, 
nature's best intentions have miscarried, he should visit 
the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, in Santo Domingo. 
Situated at an elevation of 500 feet above the sea, on a 
plateau in the center of a vast valley, bounded on the 
north by the Monte Cristi range of mountains, and on 



i8o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the south by the cordillera of the Cibao, it possesses a 
salubrious cHmate and attractive scenery. The bluff upon 
which it was built is washed by the waters of the Yaqui, 
called by Columbus Rio del Oro, or River of Gold, on 
account of the precious grains he found in its sands. The 
Yaqui rises in the southern Cordilleras and flows at first 
northerly toward the site of Santiago, then turns north- 
westerly, running all the way through a valley of its own 
name to the Bay of Manzanillo, where it meets the sea 
near the boundary line between Santo Domingo and 
Haiti, not far from Monte Cristi. 

From the Santiago watershed also flow, southeasterly, 
streams which unite to form another large river, the Yuna, 
which empties into the Bay of Samana ; thus the city has 
natural outlets east and west, and is the distributing cen- 
ter for an immense region rich in mineral and vegetable 
products. It is situated about equi-distant, lOO miles, 
from the bays of Manzanillo and Samana, and from its 
commanding position has long been the objective point of 
railroads from either coast. At present there is a railroad 
from the roadstead of Sanchez, in the bight of Samana, to 
within about twenty miles of Santiago, the inland ter- 
minal being at Concepcion de la Vega, one of the ancient 
settlements of the island ; and another connecting Santiago 
with Puerto Plata. 

It was originally the intention of the builder of the first 
line to connect both bays, uniting such towns and cities 
as ]\Ioca, La Vega, Santiago, and San Lorenzo, with 
Sanchez, and the Bay of Manzanillo or Monte Cristi, at 
either end. But the many obstacles incident to railroad 
construction in a tropical country, where a corrupt gov- 
ernment granted land to which it had no title, and mean- 
spirited citizens insisted upon extortionate damages for 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO i8i 

the taking of properties to which they laid claim, proved 
too much for the projector of this enterprise. 

A great natural highway, however, runs from one end 
of this double valley to the other, and though from 
Samana to Santiago the ordinary road is almost impass- 
able, especially in the rainy season, yet from Santiago 
to Monte Cristi wheeled vehicles may be driven at all 
times. 

It was my fortune twice to pass over the gap existing 
between La Vega and Santiago, a distance of perhaps 
twenty miles, and it took me six hours, mounted on a good 
island pony, to accomplish the journey. The roadway 
was a perfect Sargasso sea of mudholes, in which human 
bipeds and beasts of burden floundered almost hopelessly, 
the former hopping from hummock to hummock, and the 
latter plunging belly deep in holes the length of their legs. 
This was one of the first highways ever surveyed in the 
New World, and yet to-day, doubtless, it is in worse con- 
dition than four hundred years ago, when the virgin forest 
first resounded to the clang of armor and the smiting of 
steel on stone, as the cavaliers of Columbus made their 
explorations. 

When Columbus first marched his gallant caballeros 
through the " Hidalgos' Pass " in the Yaqui Mountains, 
setting out from the city he had founded in 1493, ^^^ 
called Isabella, he found, in the valley revealed as the crest 
was reached, a gentle and docile body of people, engaged 
in cultivating the soil and innocent pastimes. 

In his second expedition to the interior, having ascended 
the Yaqui as far as the present site of Santiago and 
crossed the watershed, he was so overcome by the beauty 
of the great valley as seen from the hill of Santo Cerro 
that he fell on his knees and thanked God for the privilege 



1 82 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

of beholding it. He called it the P^ega Real, Royal Valley 
or Plain, since it surpassed in natural charms every scene 
he had ever looked upon. 

This was in 1494 ; in 1495 he led his forces against the 
hitherto peaceful Indians and overwhelmed them with 
terrible slaughter, converting the hill of Santo Cerro, 
whence he had first viewed the beautiful Vega, and is 
said to have directed the battle, into a veritable Golgotha. 
Closely following upon that engagement, in which the 
backbone of an Indian rebellion was broken, came the 
establishment of the third in a chain of forts built to com- 
mand the valley of Yaqui and the western Vega. It was 
called Concepcion, and after it the village of that name, 
still existing. Fort Concepcion de la Vega was destroyed 
by an earthquake in 1564, but remains of one of its 
bastions are still to be seen, as also portions of the bell 
tower of a church erected soon after it was built. 

The year previous, in 1494, a settlement had been 
effected at a spot called Jacagua, about two or three miles 
from the site of Santiago, where a spring of delicious 
water and good soil made an excellent location. But ten 
years later, or in 1504, a body of hidalgos petitioned 
King Ferdinand of Spain for permission to locate upon 
the more commanding situation of Santiago, on the bluff 
above the river Yaqui. 

They were, most of them, of noble blood — hidalgos, or 
hijos de algos, " sons of somebody " — and probably the 
pick of the conquistadores. Their request was granted, 
and also permission to distinguish their city by the appel- 
lation it so proudly insists upon to-day : de los Caballeros, 
" The City of the Gentlemen," in itself a patent of nobil- 
ity. At the outset a place of importance, soon outranking 
the city of Santo Domingo, which was founded by the 




13 



o 
.13 

Co 



<3 



« 

o 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 1S3 

plebeian Bartholomew Columbus two years later, San- 
tiago de los Caballeros has ever held itself to be the aris- 
tocratic capital. 

It is pitiful, in view of the changes that have happened 
in the past centuries, to find the population of the island 
maintaining this distinction to-day ; to-day, when the 
descendants of negro slaves claim to be the caballeros^ and 
those of the conquistadores have nearly disappeared. Yet 
more pitiful is the fact that the descendants of those 
doughty conquerors, who, despite their cruelties, have 
won a meed of admiration for their bravery and unflinch- 
ing endurance, have for many years been subject to the 
inferior race ! 

The white population of the island, all too few ui num- 
ber, has its largest representation here, and there are old 
families who can boast descent, more or less direct and 
contaminated with negro and aboriginal blood, from the 
intrepid companions of Columbus. I myself have seen, 
haye purchased from their owners, rare old " Toledos " 
that doubtless came over with the conquerors — perhaps 
the very swords with which the valiant Spaniards were 
wont to cleave the skulls of inoffensive Indians— as we 
read was their daily custom of a morning, in order to keep 
their hands in, and to prove the keenness of their blades. 

The degradation to which the Sons of Somebody have 
descended, and the poverty that would induce the parting 
with such precious heirlooms, are suggestive, to say the 
least. But what can you expect from a people who have 
been under the iron heel of oppression for many genera- 
tions, who have been accustomed to look up to, and not 
down upon, the African sons of nobody? 

It is difficult for the Anglo-Saxon, so-called, to survive 
three generations in the tropics, without physical 



i84 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

degeneration, even when dominant and aggressive. 
What, then, of these Latins who have maintained them- 
selves without actual racial deterioration, and can boast — 
have the spirit left to boast — of their ancestral traditions ? 

Because of this distinguished ancestry, perhaps, the 
residents of Santiago have made many, though ineffectual, 
protests against the black and yellow domination which, 
since the expulsion of the Spaniards, has prevailed in 
Santo Domingo. Introduced to take the place of the 
fast-disappearing Indians (some historians say at the 
instance of Las Casas himself, though from the best of 
motives), the blacks from Africa finally becarhe numeric- 
ally superior to the whites — they and their various mesti- 
zos — and in the end predominated. 

One of the most famous, and by all odds the greatest, 
of those usurpers with black blood in their veins was the 
late President, Ulises Heureaux, who was assassinated in 
1899. He was an especial object of detestation to the 
caballeros, but rode over them rough shod. Not that 
" Lilis " (to use the diminutive b)^ which his subjects gen- 
erally spoke of him), was other than "the mildest-man- 
nered man that ever cut a throat," or that the writer has 
any prejudice against him personally. But throats he 
cut — or men he shot, which amounts to the same thing — 
and many of them, merely to keep himself in power. 

He seemed possessed of the idea that he was the man 
for the country; but, as he never did anything for the 
country except to .continually squeeze it, that his coffers 
might be filled, the impression somehow got abroad that 
perhaps he was not the right man after all. He once told 
me, in conversation, that he rarely had a man shot for 
opinion's sake, or imprisoned that he did not soon release 
him. For, said he naively, in his quaint and broken 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 185 

English, " What good it do me ef I kill he ? Then he 
brother, he father, he wife — all make my enemy. But ef 
I put he in preeson, and then take he out, and feed he, 
and give he clothe, he's family all my frien'." 

Nothwithstanding this protest, there was a discrepancy 
between his theory and his practice, as several score of 
political victims might testify — peradventure they could 
revisit this world from which the astute " Lilis " so incon- 
tinently thrust them forth. 

I remember that on my first visit to Santiago I carried a 
letter of introduction to a white man of high attainments, 
who honored me with an exceedingly generous hospitality. 
I departed for the hills in search of gold and ancient relics, 
and when I returned a few weeks later my talented host 
was not to be found. His house was there, but closed; 
his friends answered my queries evasively with sug- 
gestive shrugs of the shoulders, and it was some time 
before I learned that he had been taken suddenly to 
the capital and incarcerated in the castle. From the 
castle he was taken out and shot to death — so far as I 
could ascertain for no other reason than his aversion to 
the President. 

No less than seventy such summary executions were 
charged upon "Lilis " after his downfall and death ; and 
it was further charged that no man's life, no woman's 
virtue, was safe in Santo Domingo while he lived. 

I do not make the charge, for it is common report in 
the island, that he played the tyrant as hardly the role wa^ 
filled before for centuries. And yet " Lilis " had many 
good qualities. He was modest, and unquestionably 
brave ; he spoke three languages, was a born diplomat 
and a past master in the art of political and other 
intrigue. How many bullets he carried in his body I do 




186 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

not know ; but several had found him out, and one of his 
arms hung useless from a wound received when he was 
fighting — for or against the government. 

He may have made many mistakes during his long 
reign, but the final one consisted in shooting the wrong 
man! As long ago as -1884, it is said, he put to death 
one Caceres, a man of respectable family ; and fifteen 
years later, in July, 1899, a son of this man shot him to 
death in the town of Moca, whither he had gone to 
arrange for a loan. Brave to the last, the President tried 
to draw his revolver and make stand against his foe ; but 
he was taken by surprise, and fell to the ground shot 
through the heart. His guard fired several ineffectual 
shots at the assassin ; but he escaped, and, the deed being 
done, was lauded as a hero all over the island. 

Many a man had desired to kill " Lilis " before this 
event deprived the government of its head ; many a man 
had attempted to do so, but the despot always got wind of 
the plots and turned the tables upon the conspirators. In 
1894 he executed six ringleaders in a conspiracy against 
him, and the number of people he had put to death on 
various pretexts, without trial, is estimated at more than 
three hundred. But he was deprived of power and of 
life at the same moment, and others arose to misgovern 
the so-called republic. 

Writing soon after President Heureaux was shot, I 
said that while his death had released the island from 
despotism, it might- plunge it into anarchy ; and sub- 
sequent events seemed to bear out that prediction, for 
soon there rose Jimenez, Vasquez (whose cousin shot 
"Lilis"), Woz y Gil (who was at the time Dominican 
consul in New York), and finally Morales, to dispute 
with Vice President Figueroa the succession to execu- 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 187 

tive power. The latest happenings, the " revohitions " 
and counter-revolutions ; the sending to Santo Domingo 
of an American war-ship and the shooting of an American 
marine, are events too fresh in memory to need especial 
mention. 

The great Cuban patriot, General Maximo Gomez, has 
been frequently invoked (as a son of Santo Domingo) to 
aid one aspirant or another; but he told me himself, in 
Havana, that there was not an honest politician in the 
island. He might perhaps have made it more compre- 
hensive ; but he was speaking only of Santo Domingo. 

It is the same old story: innumerable aspirants for the 
presidency, but only one presidential chair to be filled — - 
at the time. If there could be introduced a certain sort 
of rotation in office, by which one of the gentlemen could 
be seated and held in power for the space, say, of a- 
month, and then be induced to resign in favor of the 
" next," an element of stability might be introduced into 
Dominican affairs. 

But the presidential bee is an inconsiderate insect — in 
Santo Domingo — as well as all-pervasive, for it seems to 
buzz in every ear at once. No sooner does one man feel 
that the salvation of his beloved country depends upon his 
election to the presidency, than at least a score of other 
" patriots " become convinced that they, too, were born 
especially for presidentes, and evince their determination 
in no unmistakable manner to carry out the evident 
designs of fate. The wonder is, not particularly that so 
many Dominicans are afflicted simultaneously with the 
presidential hankering, but that they can find so many 
adherents on the spur of the moment. 

The average Dominican is accustomed to carry fire- 
arms almost from the time he can walk without assist- 



i88 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ance, and he blindly adheres to whomsoever comes along 
first and makes the best offer for his services. That is, 
he adheres to him until his convictions are changed by a 
better offer ; and this accounts for the fact that there are 
always so many revolutionists in the field and fighting so 
promiscuously. A government partisan one day may be 
a revolutionist the next, depending upon the celerity with 
which he can change his convictions and get outside the 
walls. 

Generally speaking, a government soldier is one fight- 
ing behind the city walls ; while a " revolutionist " is one 
without and wandering in the open. Of whatever party, 
however, the Dominican soldier is always the same in one 
respect — he cannot shoot. Were he a marksman of even 
average ability, the Republic would long ago have been 
deprived of its most eminent citizens, for it is doubtful 
if there lives any man of prominence in Santo Domingo 
who has not been shot at a number of times. 

It also strikes the observer in the island with surprise 
that, with double the area of Haiti, Santo Domingo pos- 
sesses only half the population of the " Black RepubHc." 
The generous rivalry going on between the two republics 
doubtless serves to keep down the population of both, 
and the time may come when, in the interests of civiliza- 
tion, some more powerful nation will step in to stay the 
slaughter. There are those,' to be sure, who pretend that 
the interests of civilization can best be served by allowing 
it to proceed ! but these, needless to say, are somewhat 
prejudiced. 

Perhaps they are among those belonging to the rather 
large number of foreigners who have secured " conces- 
sions " from the government of Santo Domingo. Haiti 
never grants any concession to the white man, of what- 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 189 

ever kind, having had one bitter experience at least, 
which has sufficed her for more than a century. The 
black man knows when he has enough ; but the colored 
citizen of the Dominican half of the island has yet to 
learn. 

Like his great contemporary. President Diaz, of Mex- 
ico, Heureaux wisely realized the value of foreign capital 
properly invested — that is, in such a manner that it could 
not be zvithdrawn from the country — and encouraged all 
enterprises to that end. This will account for the rail- 
roads in the island, such^as that from the bay of Samana 
to the Vega or interior vale of Santo Domingo, and from 
Puerto Plata to Santiago. Also for the taking over by 
a foreign concern (originally Dutch, but now Am.erican) 
of the debt and the administration of the customs. 

It is a tradition in Santo Domingo that no foreigner 
ever held the better end of a bargain with " Lilis " ; nor, 
as to that matter, with any of his numerous successors. 
But there are several living witnesses to these things ; let 
them come forward and testify. 

This allusion to personal encounters with the presidents 
brings me to speak of a little enterprise which I myself 
once attempted to carry through. Not for my own 
benefit, but (as I viewed it then) for the benefit, or glor- 
ification rather, of the great United States, It was while 
serving in the capacity of commissioner to the West 
Indies for the Chicago exposition of 1893. Desiring to 
advance the interests of the exposition to the best of my 
ability, I conceived the design (as it was a " Columbian " 
exposition, and desirous of securing all relics of Colum- 
bus) of inducing the Dominicans to erect at Chicago a 
reproduction of the old tower that stands at the mouth 
of the Ozama River, the " Homenage," and fill it with 



I90 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

relics of Columbus and his period. The President ac- 
cepted my proposal with avidity, and sent his minister of 
public affairs to the consulate, where I made my head- 
quarters, to negotiate, 

I thought the way smooth for securing the object of 
my desires ; but I had not counted upon that peculiar trait 
of the Dominican which (to state it mildly) attaches a 
mercenary value to patriotism. The minister of public 
affairs came and talked it over with me, and all seemed 
going along swimmingly until I happened to mention 
that the reproduction of the tower would probably cost 
his republic a matter of twenty thousand dollars or so. 

He then made reply that they had considered this 
expenditure, and had concluded, in view of the poverty 
of their country, and inasmuch as all their revenues were 
hypothecated to the " Dutch loan," to ask the exposition 
managers for a loan of, say, $100,000, from which they 
would be reimbursed to the amount of $10,000 annually! 

After I had recovered from the first shock of surprise, 
the humor of the incident struck me so forcibly that I 
resolved to go through with it to the end, in order to see 
to what lengths the government was ready to proceed. 
So I said that perhaps my people would erect the tower 
themselves, and then Santo Domingo would only have to 
fill it with her products, etc. 

I was met with the astounding statement that what 
they wanted was the loan, from which we could deduct 
the $20,000 in advance (a vast concession, which the 
.minister rolled as a sweet morsel under his tongue), and 
we could fill it with what we pleased. And he added, 
bringing forward an argument which he evidently con- 
sidered convincing, that if we would grant the loan (for 
Dominica to represent herself at the exposition), they 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 191 

would send over " the most sacred remains of Don 
Christopher Columbus," which (as I knew) they still 
held conserved in their cathedral. 

I was somewhat dubious about the bones of Columbus. 
Not that I had doubts as to their authenticity; but did 
have grave doubts as to the propriety of receiving them 
as an " exhibit." 

I sought to minimize his claim by casually alluding to 
the doubts which existed as to their remains being the 
real and only legitimate bones of Columbus; but he was 
not to be " bluffed." We carried the matter before the 
President, with whom I had a personal interview. He 
was evidently the real author of the minister's suggestion, 
for, after listening to my protest against his government 
humiliating itself by asking a loan, instead of honoring 
itself by voluntary representation at the exposition, he 
replied: 

"Now, Mistair Commissionaire, it ees not ze honaire 
zat we want, but ze loan. You may have ze honaire, my 
dear frien', but I have conclude zat to go zare eet ees 
necessarie to mek one leetle loan, and for zis loan I will 
pay seex per cent, eenterest, and will return eet at ze rate 
of ten souzand dollair evary year." 

In order to understand the full significance of the 
offer made by the government of Santo Domingo, and 
at the same time clear up the mystery attaching to the 
two sets of " remains " left behind by Columbus when he 
died, let me explain : 

We will grant that he died at Valladolid, Spain, 1506. 
After his demise his remains were taken to Seville, where 
they were deposited in the monastery of Las Cuevas; 
but as there was a clause in his last will and testament 
desiring that they might at some time be transported to 



192 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Santo Domingo, this depository was considered as 
temporary, though it was not until 1540 that his request 
was fulfilled. 

In the lapse of centuries, and some say owing to the 
necessity for concealing his tomb for fear of sacrilege by 
Sir Francis Drake and other " English pirates " who were 
cruising in the Caribbean sea, the actual place of sepul- 
ture was lost sight of. Others of his name and family 
had been deposited there beneath slabs let into the pave- 
ment, but without distinctive inscriptions. 

In 1795 the island passed to the French, and it was 
desired to remove the remains of Christopher Columbus 
to Havana; but nothing, however, could be found to 
identify his bovcda, or vault. 

A frigate was sent from Havana with orders to trans- 
port the great Columbus to Cuba, and it was necessary 
that his remains should be found. 

Officials sounded the pavement, and, finding a slab that 
gave forth a hollow noise, excavated beneath and dis- 
covered fragments of bones and of a leaden case, which 
they took up with great care and bore to the frigate with 
vast pomp and ceremony. The rcstos were deposited in 
a niche made for the purpose in Havana Cathedral. 

I would much rather believe that the bones of Colum- 
bus still remain in the land to which he gave a new con- 
tinent and beneath the flag which he carried on his voy- 
ages of discovery. 

Not that the Spaniards deserved well of Columbus, 
nor that he himself desired to rest in the soil of Spain ; 
for they permitted him to die neglected, if not in poverty. 

It would seem that his desire had been granted, and 
that his ashes " repose " in the island of Santo Domingo; 
but here again comes in the irony of a discriminating 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 193 

fate. Not even Columbus, far-seeing as he was, could 
have divined that the island he had toiled for and fought 
for would pass into the hands of the descendants of the 
Africans taken there as slaves. 

Negro slavery in America had its beginning in that 
very island of Santo Domingo. To-day we find the re- 
mote descendants of Africans who were torn from their 
homes by the Spaniards, and who wore their lives out 
beneath the lash of Spanish task-masters, exhibiting as 
the most precious of their treasures the remains of the 
man who laid the foundations of that slavery! 

It is probable that the Spaniards took the ashes of 
Diego, the only legitimate son of Christopher Columbus, 
to Havana, and hence one hundred years later to Spain. 
I do not ask anyone to accept this statement on my 
assertion, but will now relate the discovery of the second 
set of " remains," upon which the Dominicans found 
their claim to the " real and only legitimate restos." 

In 1877, while repairs were being made in the cathe- 
dral, a vault was discovered from which the workmen 
took a leaden casket containing not only fragments of 
bones, but a silver plate with an inscription setting forth 
that these were the remains of Don Cristobal Colon, dis- 
coverer of America, etc. 

The leaden case also bore an inscription, " Illustre y 
esclarecido Varon, Don Cristobal Colon," and there was 
likewise a bullet, which, it was claimed, Columbus had 
received in a skirmish with pirates in Africa. Here, 
theq, was evidence in abundance — more than was actu- 
ally necessary, in fact — that the restos had at last been 
found. 

The island was shaken from center to circumference, 
as it was quickly realized what a valuable asset these 



194 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

remains could be made and the Dominican author- 
ities really rose to the occasion. They carefully collected 
the fragments of bones, ashes, bits of lead, and so forth, 
and had them placed, together with the leaden case, in an 
uriia, or casket, of satinwood and glass. This casket 
was kept in a secure place, and three keys were provided, 
all of which were necessary to unlock it. 

One key was in the custody of the cathedral chapter, 
another in the keeping of the President of the Repub- 
lic, and the third of the Ayuiitaniioito, or city council. 

At the time the " legitimate " remains were found 
another vault opened disclosed the rcstos of Don Luis 
Columbus, Duke of A^ragua, and as it was pretty well 
known that the third Columbus interred in the Presby- 
tery was Don Diego, who at one time was viceroy of 
Santo Domingo, upon this inference is based the as- 
sumption that it was he who was taken away in 1795. 

At Pajarito. the hamlet that was shelled by the " New- 
ark " on February 11, 1904, still stands the old chapel 
from the doorway of which Bobadilla proclaimed his 
authority to supersede Columbus, just prior to sending 
him to Spain in chains. It would seem that this pre- 
cious old city, with its historic relics and memorials of 
an interesting past, has a rather precarious tenure of ex- 
istence, what with the bombardment it has undergone 
and is still likely to be subject to from one revolutionary 
party or the other. 

Whether they will hold the relics of Columbus in 
greater veneration than they do the ancient structures 
they so recklessly turn their fire against, remains to be 
seen. It so happens, however, that some of the most 
precious of American memorials are in possession of 
men of alien race and sympathies. 



MISGOVERNED SANTO DOMINGO 195 

Whether they have a proper regard for them, merely 
as reUcs of the historic past, may perhaps be gathered 
from my own experiences. I refer now to the story 
respecting the alleged sale of the remains. 

It is not true that the remains of Columbus were of- 
fered to me on sale, but it is true that there was a tenta- 
tive memorandum drawn up regarding their transfer to 
this country as an " exhibit." This memorandum is on 
official paper bearing the imprint: '' Republica Domin- 
icana, Ministerio de F omenta y Obras Publicas." 

The substance of the document is as follows : 

i.^The Dominican Government is enthusiastic in its desire to 
assist at said Exposition in 1893, for the purpose of exhibiting 
there the products of the island, natural, mineral, industrial, etc. 

2. — The Dominican Government would include in its exhibits 
the remains of the great discoverer, Don Christopher Colum- 
bus ; provided, however, that the Government of the United 
States of America, or duly accredited officials, would so manifest 
their desire, and would guarantee to receive the precious relics 
with all the honors due to a personage of the exalted station of 
the great admiral; also with the proper guarantees for their 
restoration. 

3. — It would be expected that the Government of the United 
States would waive the collection of duties on such articles as 
were intended for exhibition, and that they might be sold at its 
close. 

4. — In order to accomplish its desires, it will be necessary for 
the Dominican Government to effect a loan, in the United States, 
of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), in gold, interest on 
the saroe to be at six (6) per cent. ; and the principal to be re- 
funded at the rate of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) annually. 

As security for this loan, the Dominican Government will 
pledge a portion of its annual revenues, guaranteed by an order 
on the Casa de Recaudacion, and for the return of the propor- 
tional amount as agreed upon. 

5. — It is agreed that if the Commissioner be successful in 
securing this loan (as above mentioned) of $100,000, he may 



.196 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

reserve the sum of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) for the 
construction of a Government building at Chicago, said building 
to be an exact reproduction of the old castle in this Capital, 
known as the " Homenage," and conforming to the plans of the 
architect in charge. 

6. — To accompany the precious remains of Don Christopher 
Columbus during their transportation and throughout the period 
of their repose at the Exposition, the Dominican Government 
will designate a commission of its most distinguished citizens, to 
the number of six, who will gaiard these sacred relics while they 
are in the United States of America, and until they are again 
returned to their hnal resting-place in this Capital. 

This precious document, a speaking commentary on 
the astuteness of Dominican diplomacy, was signed by 
both the Minister of Public Affairs and myself, in the 
presence of the late President Heureaux, who looked 
smilingly on, nodding his approval. 

That " Minister de Fomento " was Sefior Woz y Gil, 
who was ousted from the presidential chair in 1903, hav- 
ing succeeded, after several intermediaries, the gallant 
and sanguinary " citizen president " of Santo Domingo 
who now sleeps his last with the great church of Santiago 
de los Cabelleros as his solitary tomb. 



XII 

TREASURES IN SEA AND SOIL 

Santo Domingo girdled with sunken treasure galleons — The 
Treasure-trove of Silver Shoals — The fleet that went down 
off Puerto Plata — What Davy Jones's locker contains — 
Search of Sir William Phipps for the Spanish silver — Cot- 
ton Mather's account of the voyage — How the Phipps for- 
tune was acquired — Silver bullion brought up by the ton — 
Lion's share appropriated by the Duke of Albemarle — 
What his heirs did with it— The harbor of Puerto Plata — 
Beautiful bay and harbor of Samana — The Samana penin- 
sula and Bay of Arrows — Santa Barbara, Sanchez, Savana 
de la mar, La Vega, Moca, and Macoris — The railroad to 
the interior — When Samana came near being annexed to the 
United States — The regions for agricultural and mineral 
development — When gold was first discovered by Europeans 
in America, and where it was found — The River of Golden 
Sands — Where gold may be found at the present time — 
The natives wash it out with a calabash — Handfuls of nug- 
gets and where they were obtained — The mystery of the 
Cibao country. 

WHILE I was in the town of Puerto Plata, at 
one time, the people there were greatly ex- 
cited over the rumored discovery of some 
silver bars, found on or near a submerged reef known 
as the Silver Bank or Shoals. Inquiry revealed the 
fact that the submarine treasure had probably lain be- 
neath the water for more than two hundred years, and 
further research convinced me that a one-time resident 
of my own State, Massachusetts, had searched for, and 
had found some, of the treasure alluded to. 

19.7 



198 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

West Indian waters still conceal the wrecks of many 
Spanish galleons sent to the bottom long ago by buc- 
caneers, by storm and hurricane; and in fact the island 
of Santo Domingo is completely girdled with them. 
Probably the richest treasure ever sunk in any sea was 
that contained in the galleon which sailed from the port 
of Santo Domingo in 1502, with Governor Bobadilla, 
the persecutor of Christopher Columbus, aboard. It 
was lost in a terrible hurricane, predicted by Columbus, 
who was the " weather sharp " of those days, and it lies 
ofi the southeast coast of the island, near the islet of 
Saona. 

Among other treasures contained in this galleon 
was a mass of pure gold, the largest nugget ever 
found in the West Indies, perhaps in the world. As 
neither wreck nor gold has yet been located, there is still 
a tempting prize for some daring diver with modern 
equipment to recover. 

Four hundred years have passed since Bobadilla and 
his ill-gotten gold went down, and two hundred and 
seventy since the Puerto Plata treasure went to Davy 
Jones's locker. The latter was contained in a Spanish 
fleet homeward bound from the Isthmus laden with silver 
from the mines of Peru. The commander of the fleet 
was bearing up for the Bahamas channel, after passing 
through which he would have an open passage all the 
way to Spain. But Fate, in the shape of a great storm, 
interposed, and the entire fleet went to the bottom not 
far distant from Puerto Plata on the north coast of Santo 
Domingo. 

As to. the sinking of this fleet with its vast treasure of 
silver and rich freightage of pearls and gold, an authentic 
account has been preserved in the pages of Cotton 



TREASURES IN SEA AND SOIL 199 

Mather's " Magnalia Christi Americana," published two 
hundred years ago. It was not the erudite Mather's in- 
tention, perhaps, to chronicle the happenings of a treas- 
ure-seeking expedition per se, so much as to narrate the 
adventures of a great hero of his, Sir William Phipps, 
whose fortune and fame were based upon this expedition. 
As an account by a contemporary, this narrative telling 
how the " Phipps' fortune " was made, is exceedingly 
valuable as well as interesting, and especially in connec- 
tion with the investigation now under way for the re- 
covery of treasure that is supposed to have been left 
behind after Sir William's search in 1683. 

"The subject of this sketch," says Mather, writing a 
few years after he had relinquished his fanatical pursuit 
of the witches of Salem, " was born February 2, 1650, 
at a despicable plantation on the River Kennebec and 
almost the furthest village of the eastern settlement of 
New England. . , . His mother had no less than 
twenty-six children, whereof twenty-one were sons ; but 
equivalent to them all was William, one of the youngest, 
who lived with his mother, his father dying, until he was 
eighteen years old. . . . He then betook himself a 
hundred and fifty miles afield, even to Boston, the chief 
town of New England, where he learned, first of all, to 
read and write, followed the trade of ship carpenter for 
about a year, and by a laudable deportment he so recom- 
mended himself that he married a young gentlewoman 
of good repute, who was the widow of one Mr. John 
Hull. . . . And he would frequently tell the gentle- 
woman, his wife, that he would yet be Captain of a King's 
ship ; that he would come to have the command of better 
men than he was now accounted ; and that this would not 
be all that the Providence of God would bring him to; 



200 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

that indeed he should be the owner of a fair brick house 
in the Green Lane of North Boston, etc, . . . 

" Being- thus of the true temper for the doing of great 
things and upon the advice received of a Spanish wreck 
about the Bahamas (said to have been given him by a 
smuggler), he took a voyage thither, but with little more 
success than what just served to furnish him for a voy- 
age to England, whither he went in a vessel not much 
unlike that which the Dutchmen stamped on their first 
coins, with these words about it : ' None can tell where 
Fate will bear me.' ... 

" Having first informed himself that there was another 
Spanish wreck, wherein was lost a mighty treasure hith- 
erto imdiscovered, he had a strong impression upon his 
mind that he must be its discoverer, and he made such 
representations at White Hall that by the year 1683 he 
truly became the captain of a King's ship, the ' Algier 
Rose,' a frigot of eighteen guns and ninety-five men. 
. . . In her he sailed to Jamaica, and thence to His- 
paniola, where, by the policy of his address, he fished 
out of a very old Spaniard a little advice about the true 
spot where lay the wreck which he had been hitherto 
seeking: that it was upon a reef of shoals a few leagues 
to the northward of Port de la Plata [Puerto Plata] in 
Hispaniola, a port so called, it seems, from the landing 
of a shipwrecked company with a boatload of plate, saved 
out of a sinking frigot. . . . Nevertheless, he had to 
return to England [more likely to Jamaica] where at 
length he prevailed upon the Duke of Albemarle and 
some other persons of quality to fit him out again, and 
then set sail a second time for the fishing ground that 
had been so well baited half a hundred years be- 
fore. ... 



TREASURES IN SEA AND SOIL 201 

" Arriving with a ship and tender at Port de la Plata, 
the divers were sent to explore the ' Boilers,' as the reefs 
of shoals were called, but they discovered nothing. At 
last, when about to return empty-handed and despondent, 
one of the divers was sent down to bring up a sea 
feather, which was espied attached to a rock; and he 
also brought up a surprising story, to wit, that he had 
seen great guns in the water world below, the report of 
which great guns [Mr. Mather's pun] exceedingly as- 
tonished the whole company, who were at last assured 
that they had lit upon the true spot of ground which they 
had been looking for; and they were further confirmed 
in these assurances when, upon further diving, the Indian 
fetched up a ' sow ' — as they styled it — or a lump of sil- 
ver, worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. Upon 
this they prudently buoyed the place, that they might 
readily find it again, and then went back unto their cap- 
tain, whom for a while they distressed with bad news, 
nothing but bad news; nevertheless, they so sHpped the 
sow of silver on one side under the table that when he 
should look that way he might see that odd thing before 
him. At last he saw it and he cried out with some 
agony: ' Why, what is this? Whence comes this? ' And 
then, with changed countenances, they told him how and 
where they got it. ' Then,' said he, ' thanks be to God, 
we are made! ' 

*' And so away they went, all hands to work; and most 
happily they fell upon that room in the wreck where the 
bullion was stored up; and they so prospered in their 
new fishery that in a little while they had, without the 
loss of any man's life, brought up thirty-two tuns of sil- 
ver; for it was now come to measuring silver by tuns! 
Besides which, one Adderly of Providence [Bahamas], 



202 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

who had formerly been very helpful to Capt. Phipps 
in the search for this wreck, did meet him now with a 
little vessel, and with his few hands took up about six 
tuns more. 

" Thus did there come into the light of the sun a 
treasure which had been half a hundred years groaning 
under the water; and in this time there was grown upon 
the plate a crust like limestone, which crust being broke 
open, they knocked out whole bushels of rusty pieces-of- 
eight, which were grown thereinto. 

" Thus did they continue fishing till, their provisions 
failing them, 'twas time to be gone. And it was remark- 
able that though the ' sows ' came up still so fast that on 
the last day of their being there they took up twenty, yet 
it was afterwards found that they had in a measure 
wholly cleared that room of the ship where those massy 
things were stored. 

"But there was one extraordiriary distress which Capt. 
Phipps now found himself plunged into; for his men 
were come out with him upon seamen's wages at so much 
per month; and when they saw such vast litters of silver 
sows and pigs come on board at their captain's call, they 
knew not how to bear it, that they should not share all 
among themselves, and be gone to lead a ' short life and 
a merry one,' in a climate where it was so delightful to 
live. But still, keeping a most careful eye upon them, 
he hastened back to England [first to Port Royal, Ja- 
maica, in all probability], though he left so much behind 
that many from clivers parts made very considerable 
voyages of gleanings, after his harvest." 

From reading this involved marrative, it might be in- 
ferred that Capt. Phipps very thoroughly ransacked the 
sunken wreck off the reefs of Puerto Plata; but there is 



TREASURES IN SEA AND SOIL 203 

no evidence that he found and searched more than a 
single galleon, while the Spanish records show, it is said, 
that a whole fleet was sunk. 

No doubt can attach to the authenticity of the Mather 
narrative of Capt. Phipps's wonderful voyage; but if 
additional evidence were desired, it could be adduced 
from a history of Jamaica written more than a hundred 
years ago, in which is given a curious sequel to the 
adventure. In the year 1687, it says, Christopher, Duke 
of Albemarle, was appointed Governor of Jamaica. 
" This nobleman was the only son and heir of Gen. Monk, 
who had restored Charles II. Brought to beggary by 
vice and extravagance, he was reduced to the necessity 
of imploring bread from James I., and the king sent him 
to Jamaica, where he died soon after his arrival. He 
lived long enough, however, to collect a considerable 
sum of money for his creditors, for, entering into part- 
nership with Sir William Phipps, who had discovered 
the wreck of a Spanish plate ship, he was greatly en- 
riched. 

" On the death of the Duke, his coadjutors in the div- 
ing business, many of whom were buccaneers, complained 
that they had not received their full share of the prize 
money, and her Grace, the Duchess, who had got posses- 
sion of the treasure, refusing to part with a shilling, they 
formed a scherne to seize her person in the King's House 
at Spanish Town and carry her off. Luckily she re- 
ceived some intimation of the plot and communicated her 
apprehensions to the House of Assembly, who thereupon 
formed a committee of their ablest members to guard her 
day and night until she safely embarked in one of the 
King's ships for England. 

" She arrived home with all her treasure, at the be- 



204 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ginning of June, 1688; but some years afterward fell 
into a state of imbecility, in the progress of which she 
pleased herself with the notion that the Emperor of 
China, having heard of her immense riches, was coming 
to pay her his addresses. She even made magnificent 
preparations for his reception. 

" As she was perfectly gentle and good-humored in 
her lunacy, her attendants not only encouraged her in the 
folly, but contrived to turn it to good account by per- 
suading a needy peer, the first Duke of Montague, to 
personate his Chinese majesty, and deceive her into wed- 
lock, which he actually did ; and with greater success 
than honesty by this means got possession of her wealth 
and then confined her as a lunatic. 

" Cibber, the comedian, who thought the circumstance 
a good jest, introduced it on the stage, and it formed a 
scene in his play called ' The Sick Lady Cured.' Though 
her Grace survived her husband, the pretended Emperor, 
for many years, dying at last in 1734 at the age of ninety- 
eight, her frenzy remained to the last, and to the day of 
her death she was served on bended knee as the empress 
of China." 

Puerto Plata is the chief seaport of the north coast, 
and the brightest, most cleanly and most progressive of 
any town in the island. It derives its name from the time, 
of Columbus, who called it the Port of the Silver Moun- 
tain, the beautiful elevation behind it being frequently 
capped by a wreath of silver clouds. 

As a railroad connects the port with Santiago, and the 
adjacent country is rich, picturesque, and healthful, it is 
likely that Puerto Plata will become an attractive resi- 
dential region, should peace ever prevail in Santo Do- 
mingo. There is a good landing-place in the shape of a 



TREASURES IN SEA AND SOIL 205 

jetty thrust out from the shore ; but as the water is shal- 
low, the interesting sight is afforded of native ox-carts 
floating in the harbor, with the oxen attached wading 
about with the water up to their noses. 

The harbor is small but deep, serving well for coast- 
wise commerce, but hardly sufficing for large steamers. 
The best harbor in Santo Domingo lies about a night's 
run to the southeast of Puerto Plata. This is its great 
natural basin and glorious harbor, Samana Bay. 

The real harbor of the great bay of Arrows lies five 
or six miles within the gulf, and, together with the town 
adjacent, is knoAvn as Santa Barbara. A series of small 
cays lies opposite town and harbor, between the islets 
and the main, being a perfect cul-de-sac, with deep water 
close to shore. Steep, cultivated hills rise directly from 
the shore, with offshoots oft'ering choice sites for dwell- 
ings; the lateral valleys are fertile and filled with every 
tropical product, the beaches are smooth and fringed with 
palms, the bay within the reefs delightful for bathing, 
boating, and fishing. 

The Samana peninsula is about forty miles in length, 
and consists of a range of hills thrust right out into the 
ocean to the north of the bay. These hills, swept by cool 
breezes, covered with tropical vegetation, and with their 
feet on either side plunged into the sea, offer desirable 
sites for farms and winter settlements. 

About sixty years ago a colony of blacks was settled 
here from the States, and the American traveler will have 
the pleasure of hearing his own language spoken, instead 
of Spanish, which prevails elsewhere in the island. These 
black people have held their own, have built schools and 
churches, and have set a good example of thrift and so- 
briety to the shiftless natives. They were. President 



2o6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Heureaux once told me, the most reliable and peaceful 
of his subjects. That is, they did not aspire to furnish 
a presidential possibihty every few months, like their 
neighbors, and had no political ambitions likely to prove 
disastrous to himself. 

At the head of the bay is the straggling settlement of 
Sanchez, hardly more than a streak of buildings showing 
against a background of forest-covered hills. The bay is 
shallow here, but great importance attaches to Sanchez, 
on account of its being the coast terminus of the 
longest railroad in the island. This road is between 
sixty and seventy miles in length, and extends to the 
town of Concepcion de la Vega, but was projected to 
unite the bay with the important city of Santiago de los 
Caballeros, and perhaps with Monte Cristi. 

So far as its natural features are concerned, this Vega 
Real is one of the most beautiful regions in the world, 
the soil is fertile, and the productions limited only by the 
labor of the inhabitants. Unfortunately the natives are 
lazy and shiftless, working only for the satisfaction of 
their present needs ; their dwellings are mere huts of 
straw and slabs of palm bark, without windows and 
floors, except for holes closed at night with boards, and 
mud hardened by the passing of feet. 

The Samana Bay country came within an ace of being 
annexed to the United States, during President Grant's 
administration, as " old-timers " may recall, for, after 
commissioners had been sent out to inquire into the con- 
dition of things and the desires of the Dominicans, a con- 
vention for a treaty of annexation was entered into ; but 
the Senate rejected the treaty by a tie vote, June 30. 1870. 
It has always attracted the attention of enterprising 
Americans, and there are several nuclei for colonies along 




CO 



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o 
o 






o 



Co 



TREASURES IN SEA AND SOIL 207 

the shores of the beautiful bay, one of them, on the south 
shore, at Savana la Mar, being finely situated and flour- 
ishing. 

The great peninsula extending eastward from a line 
drawn due north and south between the head of Samana 
Bay and Santo Domingo City contains vast and fertile 
regions almost as little developed as during the times of 
the aborigines. Here dwelt the Higueyans, among whom 
was settled for a period stout old Ponce de Leon, the 
conqueror of Puerto. Rico. Along the south coast of the 
islands,- as at Macoris and Azua, are extensive sugar plan- 
tations, some of which are very remunerative, needing 
only protracted peace and capital to become as profitable 
to their owners as the ingcnios of Cuba — provided, of 
course, they could receive as fair treatment from the 
United States in the way of reciprocal duties as Cuba is 
receiving to-day. 

The region for agricultural development lies adjacent 
to the coast, and in the rich valle3's of the Yuna, and of 
the Yaqui, north and south. That for exploitation with 
a view to unearthing gold and other minerals, is the Cor- 
dillera country of the interior. 

It was in Santo Domingo, really, that the first gold was 
discovered by white men in America, for, though Colum- 
bus had seen gold in the Bahamas and in Cuba in the 
shape of nose and ear ornaments worn by the natives, the 
latter always pointed to Haiti or Santo Domingo as the 
home of the precious product. When he arrived ofif the 
coast of Haiti, in December, 1492, he was given a great 
deal of dust and some nuggets, and when, he finally 
reached the bay of the present Cape Haitien he found 
himself on the threshold of the golden country, the 
" Cibao " of the Indians. 



2o8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

I once saw a handful of fine nuggets, obtained from 
near the head waters of the Cibao, by washing with the 
primitive apparatus consisting merely of a wooden dish 
and a calabash. The largest of these nuggets weighed 
five ounces ; I bought one weighing half an ounce, and 
have heard of lumps eight ounces in weight. This gold 
is remarkably fine and sells in London and Hamburg for 
about $20 per ounce. It is thought to be derived from 
placer washings of unknown deposits in the distant 
mountains ; but no one seems to have visited the original 
source, which is still a mystery. Before me, as I write 
these lines, lie some grains of gold from the Cibao reigon, 
which I obtained at Yanico, where the second Spanish 
fort was erected four hundred ^•ears ago. 



XIII 
AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 

A reproach to Americans — The first Spanish colony in America 

— Cokimbus an explorer, not a colonizer — His brother, the 
Adelantado — How gold was discovered in Santo Domingo 

— The city founded on Ozama River's banks — Why it was 
named " Santo Domingo " — • The disastrous hurricane of 
1502 — A mediaeval city wall — House where Diego Columbus 
lived — Where lords and ladies held their court — The 
Columbus tower, date 1509 — • The old historian's description 

— Ruins within the battlemented walls — The old monastery, 
mint, convents, and churches of the sixteenth century — Our 
oldest university — The cathedral and its precious relics — 
Last resting-place of Christopher Columbus — A cannon-ball 
fired from a ship in the fleet of Sir Francis Drake. 

YOU may search vainly, far and wide, for a more 
interesting place than America's oldest city, 
Santo Domingo, capital of the island of the 
same name, in the West Indies. Notwithstanding its 
antiquity, it has been shrouded in such obscurity, of 
late, that there may be those who will deny its claim 
to the title I have given it. It is often flung at 
Americans, as a reproach, that they have no ruins of con- 
sequence within the confines of their country ; but, if it 
be true that they have no historic structures with dis- 
mantled towers to show as evidence of ancestral great- 
ness, the continent at large can boast some wonderful 
groups of ruins in Mexico and Central America, where 
indubitable evidence exists of a former civilization that 

209 



2IO OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

will compare favorably, so far as its architecture goes, 
with any the world can show, in Europe or the Orient. 

Still, Palenque, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Copan are 
silent cities; their origin, their builders, shrouded in the 
mists of antiquity. The fact remains that Santo Do- 
mingo is America's oldest city, that is, of European foun- 
dation, and continuously occupied since its first stone was 
laid in place. One Spanish settlement, only, antedates it: 
Isabella, on the north coast of the island, originally called 
by Columbus " Hispaniola," and since named after the 
city in question, Santo Domingo. After Christopher Co- 
lumbus had first landed there, in the part known to the 
natives as Haiti, and had sailed the length of it, he re- 
turned to Spain. This was on his first voyage to the 
New World, in 1492-93. On his second voyage he sailed 
a more southerly course, at first, but eventually returned 
to his point of departure, and on the north coast of His- 
paniola laid the foundations for a settlement which he 
called Isabella, after the Queen of Spain, his royal 
patroness. Having established there the nucleus of a 
colony, he sailed away on other voyages; for first of all 
Columbus was an explorer, a discoverer; never a colo- 
nizer. Having discovered a new world, he left the little 
details of its colonization and conquest to others, pressing 
on eagerly in search of other countries then unknown. 

However, the site of Isabella was unhealthy; it was 
situated at a distance from the rich gold region of the 
interior; and the upshot of it all was that, some three 
years after its settlement, while Christopher was away on 
one of his numerous voyages of discovery, his brother 
Bartholomew, who had been made " adelantado " of the 
island and left in sole charge of its conquest, abandoned 
the place entirely. 



AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 211 

The Adelantado sent out exploring parties in search of 
a more advantageous site for a colony than Isabella; but 
what he sought was really found by accident. The fu- 
ture capital of Hispaniola, in fact, was founded on a 
romance. It owes its origin to the adventures of a Span- 
ish soldier, one of Don Bartholomew's men, who, having 
wounded one of his comrades in a fight at Isabella, and 
fearing punishment, deserted. He wandered through the 
interior forests and over the central mountain chain, 
finally reaching the headwaters of the river Ozama, which 
has its outlet on the south coast of the island. The 
Indians north of the mountains had already been sub- 
jugated, having lost thousands in the great fight the year 
previous when. Columbus had led his forces against them ; 
but those to the southward of the cordillera were as yet 
unconquered. Still, tales of Spanish prowess had pene- 
trated to every portion of the island, inasmuch as a mail- 
clad warrior might have wandered all over it without 
meeting with opposition from the Indians. So it fell out 
that when this common soldier, this fugitive, Miguel 
Diaz, appeared among the Indians residing on the Oza- 
ma, he was received with open arms. It happened that 
these people were ruled over by a female cacique, who 
was captivated by the gallant figure cut by the soldier in 
armor, and promptly surrendered her heart and fortune 
to his keeping. Thus the Spanish soldier became cacique, 
or head man of the tribe, and found himself lacking for 
nothing which the heart of aboriginal man could desire. 

Still, as time wore away he yearned for the former 
comradeship, — such is the perversity of man, always 
wanting something he has not, or once did have, — and 
his queen perceiving him distrait, soon wormed his secret 
from him. Being in love with the soldier, she did not 



212 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

wish to have him leave her ; but, being in love with the 
soldier, she wished to gratify his desires. So, when he 
informed her that he could return to Isabella for a short 
visit, provided he might take with him a gift of gold to 
his commander, and that having made his peace with Don 
Bartholomew he would quickly return to her, his " first 
and only love," she told him of great store of precious 
metal which the earth contained, within her province. 

And what is more, she took him to the mines and her 
people dug out a backload of gold, which he lost no time 
in conveying to Isabella, where he related such a wonder- 
ful story that the Adelantado not only forgave him his 
offense, but promoted him on the spot. He also accepted 
his offer to guide him to the rich deposits of gold, which 
impressed him so favorably that he returned to Isabella 
and lading all the movable property there aboard ship 
sailed around to the south coast, where he practically 
founded a settlement by erecting a fort on the east bank' 
of the Ozama. The fort was the fourth of the kind 
erected in the island, and consequently in the West 
Indies ; but the settlement was the second ; and as Isabella 
soon went to ruin, and has never been inhabited since the 
Adelantado abandoned it, Santo Domingo (as stated at 
the beginning of this chapter) has the honor of being the 
oldest existing city settled by white men in America. 

Don Bartholomew named his settlement after good 
Saint Dominic, who was a native of Spain; and inci- 
dentally honored his father, Dominico Columbus, the 
humble citizen of Genoa. Christopher Columbus ap- 
proved of all his brother had done, especially the peculiar 
honor to their father. 

After enduring the various vicissitudes of a tropical 
settlement for six years, the new town on the east bank 



AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 213 

of the Ozama was first attacked by an army of ants, and 
then swept nearly out of existence by a hurricane, so the 
survivors removed to the west bank of the river, where 
the foundations were laid for the city which actually 
exists to-day. But it was while the Spaniards were in 
possession of the town on the east bank that a scene was 
enacted which has become historic, namely, the arrest of 
Columbus by his successor in the government, Bobadilla, 
and the sending of the King of Spain's " Admiral of the 
Ocean Sea " to the mother-country in chains. The walls 
of a chapel still stand on the east bank, from the doorway 
of which the arrogant Bobadilla caused the royal procla- 
mation of his authority to be read; but of the fort in 
which by his orders Columbus was confined with fettered 
limbs, a few bricks and stones alone remain, near the 
bay at the mouth of the river. 

Yes; here it was that Columbus received the first check 
to his career of conquest, here began the long series of 
misfortunes that ended only at his death. From this 
harbor of Santo Domingo, in the year 1500, he sailed 
back to Spain with manacles on wrists and ankles. Two 
years later, having equipped another expedition, he was 
denied admission to the harbor by Governor Ovando, 
though he applied on the eve of a disastrous hurricane 
from which he craved shelter and which he escaped by 
seeking a haven further down the coast. His little fleet 
survived the hurricane ; but all the vessels save one com- 
posing the fleet then about to sail for Spain with the re- 
turning governor, Bobadilla, went down before the 
cyclone, carrying among others his arch-enemy to a 
watery grave. 

Columbus was indeed avenged on Bobadilla; but the 
atrocious Ovando survived, to become the exterminator 



214 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

of the Indians, and to bestow a reluctant welcome upon 
the Admiral when rescued from the perils of the terrible 
Jamaica voyage, in 1504. This was the year in which he 
sailed across the Atlantic for the last time — that in which 
Queen Isabella died — and only two years before he him- 
self passed away. 

Shall we not hold these memories interesting, and 
should we not accord to this old city on the Ozama's 
banks a place apart and high, from its association with 
one who — whatever his shortcomings— must be accred- 
ited with the " discovery " of America? 

The settlers removed to the west bank the year of the 
great hurricane, 1502, and in course of time a massive 
wall was built, landward from the river and the sea, en- 
hancing the strategic advantages of a position naturally 
very strong. This wall remains to-day, though four 
hundred years have passed since it was built, with mediae- 
val barbacans, fortalcsas, projecting sentry-boxes, and 
a gateway loopholed and battlemented. A plan of the 
city made in the first decade of the sixteenth century, 
shows this wall intact, also the old settlement on the op- 
posite bank of the river, with the " Torrecilla de Colon," 
or tower in which Columbvis was imprisoned, standing 
near the sea, adjacent to it the gallows tree with its 
human fruit, without which no Spanish settlement of 
those times was considered complete. In fact, it was one 
of the charges brought against Columbus when Bobadilla 
was sent out to supersede him, that he always had some 
one of his enemies hanging on the gallows. In this re- 
spect, however, he differed little from the other colonists 
of Santo Domingo, who when they had authority hanged 
and quartered without mercy or restraint. 

Above the wall around the city rises, from the river's 



AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 215 

steep bank, an ancient castle called the Homenage, 
which, though the local traditioner will tell you that 
Columbus was once a prisoner within its walls, was not, 
in fact, erected until about the year 1509, when this ill- 
used individual had been three years dead. However, 
it is interesting enough of itself, without being bolstered 
up by factitious traditions ; architecturally a gem, his- 
torically a nonpareil, for it is indeed the oldest structure 
of its kind in^ America. The same year it was erected, 
Don Diego Colon, son of Columbus, having at last come 
into the rights for which he fought so pertinaciously, 
came to Santo Domingo as viceroy, bringing a lovely 
bride, Dona Maria de Toledo, allied to an ancient and 
powerful house, and with a splendid train of lords and 
ladies from the Spanish court. 

It was the most glorious assemblage that the New 
World had then looked upon ; and in sooth, poor old 
Santo Domingo has never looked upon its like since then. 
For the fortunes of city and island were then in apogee, 
the planters and merchants, the gold-seekers and the 
sailors, all, were in high feather, and it was widely ru- 
mored that the ladies of Don Diego's vice-regal court had 
all come out with a purpose, that purpose being to ac- 
quire rich husbands, — and none was disappointed. That 
is, no fair lady was disappointed in the getting of a 
wealthy husband ; but as to the qualifications of those men 
who lorded it over " encomiendas " of servile Indians, 
perhaps the less said the better. 

Still, the fact remains that Don Diego brought with 
him an elegant court, with gallant knights and maids of 
high degree ; and another fact is incontestable, namely, 
that he caused to be built a beautiful palace, facing the 
harbor, midway between the river and the landward wall, 



2i6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

and connecting the two by means of massive fortifica- 
tions. So far did he carry his defensive schemes, in fact, 
that his enemies later informed his sovereign that he 
meditated intrenching himself within this fortified palace 
and defying his King's authority. But that is a little 
story aside; we are concerned only about his palace, 
which he built so as to tower above all other structures 
there, save the grim Homenage, and adorned with the 
beauteous ladies brought from Spain. 

One of Don Diego's contemporaries, the historian, 
Oviedo, wrote a description of Santo Domingo about this 
time, which, as translated and published in black-letter, in 
the year 1555, furnishes a quaint and probably authentic 
picture of the place : 

" To speak sumwhat of the principall and chiefe place 
of the islande," says the historian, " whiche is the citie of 
San Domenico: I saye, that as'touchynge the buildynges 
there is no citie in Spaine, so muche for so-muche, (no, 
not Barsalona, which I have oftentymes seene) that is to 
bee preferred to this generallye. . For the houses of San 
Domenico are for the moste parte of stone, as are they of 
Barsalona. 

" In the mydst of the citie is the fortresse and castle ; 
the port or haven also is so fayre and commodious to de- 
fraight or unlade shyppes, as the like is founde but in 
fewe places in the worlde. The houses that are in this 
citie are about syxe hundredth in number, of the wliiche 
sum are so fayre and large that they may well receave 
and lodge any lorde or noblemanne of Spayne, w-ith his 
trayne and familie ; and especially that which Don Diego 
Colon, viceroy under your majestic, hath in this citie, is 
such that I knowe no man in Spayne that hath the lyke, 
by a quarter, in goodnesse, consyderynge all the com- 




ft^ 



o 

<3 






tt^ 



AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 217 

modoties of the same. Lykewyse the situation thereof, 
as beinge above the sayde porte, and altogether of stone, 
and havynge many fine roomes and large, with as goodlie 
a prospect of the lande and sea as may be devysed, 
seemeth unto me so magnifical and prince-lyke that your 
majestic may bee as well lodged therein as in any of the 
most exquysite builded houses of Spayne." 

In this letter, written by Oviedo to Emperor Charles V., 
there was doubtless a grain of malice toward Don Diego 
Colon, with his " magnifical and prince-lyke house," 
which bore fruit later, when said Don Diego was sum- 
moned to Spain to answer for his extravagance and prob- 
able intentions. But here are the ruins of that house, 
some of its walls still standing in a good state of preser- 
vation, just above the entrance-way through the city wall. 
It is roofless now, this ancient Casa de Colon, and 
against its gray stone w^alls lean the tottering shanties, 
palm-thatched and squalid, of degenerate Dominicans. 
Its pillared corridors have long since fallen in, the great 
halls and banquet rooms are now partly filled with filth 
and occupied as stables for donkeys, goats, and horses. 
But the " goodlie prospect of the lande and sea " is still 
outspread before one so venturesome as to climb to the 
upper rooms and dare the noisome effluvia arising from 
the stables. 

Outside the walls, close by the river, there is a spring 
known as Columbus's fountain, and a great ceiba tree is 
pointed out as one beneath which the Admiral himself 
once rested. The intramural city can boast more than a 
dozen structures still standing which date from the vice- 
royal period. Largest, and, in some respects, most 
fascinating of these is a vast and vine-draped pile entirely 
gone to ruin. It is all that remains of the first Franciscan 



2i8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

monastery founded in the New World, its corridors 
deserted, its cells, its chapel, and refectory alike roofless. 
But somewhere here lie the ashes of brave and gallant 
Bartholomew Columbus, once the x'Vdelantado, or military 
governor, of Santo Domingo ; and also buried in some 
obscure corner of the monastery chapel, now unknown, 
is another great-hearted adventurer, Alonzo de Ojeda. 
Their exploits filled the world, at one time, four centuries 
ago ; they did much to achieve the conquest of the West 
Indies ; but now, no one knows the spot that holds their 
dust. As a ruin, solely, irrespective of its historical asso- 
ciations, with its picturesque, vine-draped walls and 
cloister-arches, San Francisco is well worth a visit and 
inspection, for we have few such in the United States. 
Then there are other buildings of equal antiquity, such 
as the casa dc moncda, or the king's mint, with a fine 
fagade ; the convent-church of San Nicolas, founded in 
1509, with a beautiful groined canopy over its presbytery ; 
the quaint and original church of Santa Barbara, on a hill 
in an angle of the river- wall ; and San Miguel, near by, 
which was built by the king's treasurer three hundred and 
eighty years ago ; handsome Santa Clara, which has been 
restored, and San Anton, a mere shell falling to decay. 
But of the ecclesiastical structures within the walls, the 
convent-church of Santo Domingo, dating from Don 
Diego's time, is locally the most famous and possesses an 
interest absolutely unique because of its associations. 
Should any reader of mine ever visit Santo Domingo, I 
beg him, or her, to closely examine the tessellated pave- 
ment of the eastern transept, where may be found a large 
tombstone with a carved coat-of-arms, the escudo of some 
Spanish grandee who died centuries agone, consisting of 
a shield disporting thirteen stars, the number and the 



AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 219 

emblems of our thirteen original States; but chiseled in 
that marble more than two hundred years before our 
famous Declaration of Independence. 

But this old church, with its serpent-supported pulpit, 
its magnificent nave and tombs of Spanish worthies, has 
an interest attaching to it far beyond its own attractions, 
inasmuch as the same Dominicans who founded it at 
about the same time established adjacent the first uni- 
versity in the New World. The ruins of this university 
have been well-nigh demolished, existing only in a lam- 
entable state of neglect; but they should be sacred to all 
lovers of learning for what they represent. In the struc- 
ture once attached to the church, and now represented by 
mounds of crumbling stone, at one time resided that fore- 
most man of his age as a philanthropist, Bartolome de las 
Casas. He came here with Ovando, in 1502, lured hither, 
perhaps, by the tales told by his father, who was with 
Columbus on his second voyage. After going with 
Velasquez and Cortes to Cuba, in 151 1, after his dis- 
astrous experiment at civilizing the Indians of the " Terra 
Firma," about 1521, he returned to Hispaniola and 
immured himself for years within the walls of this uni- 
versity and monastery. Here he produced that great 
monument to learning and industry, or at least began and 
carried well forward toward completion, his " History of 
the Indies." 

There is, indeed, one structure alone which would repay 
all the discomforts of a pilgrimage — even assuming them 
to exist — and that is another sacred shrine of early Amer- 
ican history, the noble cathedral, which was founded in 
1 5 14, and finished thirty years later. It has been shaken 
by earthquakes, sacked and bombarded by pirates, and 
at times all but abandoned; yet its massive walls still 



520 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

stand, and its roof of Spanish tiles protects many a holy 
relic. Exteriorly, the cathedral is not impressive, per- 
haps; but its glorious nave and transepts, with massive 
pillars supporting groined and lofty ceiling; its lateral 
" chapels," twelve in number, filled with saintly relics in 
age from two to four centuries, and finally, its magnificent 
retable richly carved and gilded, rising behind an altar 
plated with silver, make up for all possible deficiencies in 
its superficial aspect. One of the most precious of relics 
here, in the estimation of the natives, is a fragment of the 
cross of La Vega, upon an arm of which an angel once 
descended, it is claimed, at the battle waged by Columbus 
with the Indians, in 1495. ^^ is set in gold and inclosed 
in a silver casket, and is shown to the faithful only once a 
year. Then there is the first great cross set up on the site 
of the cathedral, in 15 14, which is nine feet high, and is 
made of native mahogany. There are paintings here 
ascribed to Murillo, and portraits of the twelve apostles, 
which are probably the work of \^elasquez. 

Reference having been made to the fear entertained 
by the Dominicans of English pirates, it should be 
explained that it was Sir Francis Drake, the famous and 
piratical adventurer, of whom they stood most in awe. 
And with good reason, for at various times he assailed 
their capital and sacked it, a memento of his attack of 
1586 being still preserved in the shape of a cannon-ball, 
once fired from his fleet, and which is imbedded in the 
roof of the cathedral. That assault of 1586 was unpro- 
voked, as shown by Drake's own historian, who says : 

" We spent the early part of the mornings in firing the 
outmost houses ; but they being built very magnificently 
of stone, with high loftes, gave us no small travell to ruin 
them. And albeit, for divers days together, we ordeined 




Cathedral Facade, Sto. Domingo City. 



AMERICA'S OLDEST CITY 221 

ech morning by daybreak, until the heat began at nine of 
the clocke, that two hundred mariners did nought els but 
labour to fire and burn the said houses, whilst the 
souldiers in like proportion stood forth for their guard, 
yet did we not, or could not, in this time, consume so 
much as one-third part of the towne ; and so in the end, 
wearied with firing, we were contented to accept of five 
and twenty thousand ducats, of five shillings and six- 
pence the peece [about thirty thousand dollars] for the 
ransome of the rest of the towne." 

Soon after this attack, Santo Domingo fell into a 
decline, and the theater of action being transferred to 
Cuba, Mexico, and Peru, it never recovered. To-day it 
presents but a pitiful picture of its former self. Its resi- 
dents speak the language of its original settlers ; but they 
are mainly of alien, African descent, the white people 
being, so few that they may be counted on one's fingers. 

Still, what other city of America can boast as its one- 
time citizens a great discoverer like Columbus ; a fifteenth- 
century humanitarian like Las Casas ; a monster of 
depravity like Ovando, and a quartet of conquerors like 
Velasquez, who subjugated Cuba ; Cortes, who conquered 
Mexico; Balboa, the explorer of Darien, discoverer of 
the Pacific ; and Pizarro, who stole the treasures of Peru ? 



XIV 

PUERTO RICO, SPANISH AND AMERICAN 

My first glimpse of Puerto Rico — The policeman with the itching 
palm — Editorial amenities — West-Indian newspapers — 
Descendants of Columbus — What our Government has done 
— Ungrateful Puerto-Riquenos — The laboring classes, who 
do not labor — The gibaro and his hut of palm leaves — 
Inexpensive living in Puerto Rico — Suppose one were to 
adopt it ? — Thanksgiving Day and its observance in the 
island — What the hurricane did — The natural resources 
available — Birds and quadrupeds of this island — Temperate 
and tropical regions compared — The population — No stand- 
ard of morality — Possibilities in tropical agriculture — There 
is gold in the mountain streams — History of its discovery — 
What Agueynaba did to the Spaniards. 

IT is a long look backward to my first glimpse of 
Puerto Rico, in the winter of 1879-80, yet I can 
easily recall many incidents of my voyage around 
that island, the interior of which was then a veritable 
terra incognita. I remember, for instance, that when 
I first entered the harbor of San Juan, on board 
the " Hadji," a British built " tub," sailing under Amer- 
ican colors, the Spanish customs official, who had been 
put aboard off the harbor-entrance, promptly stepped in 
front of my camera when I attempted to photograph the 
Morro and the fortifications. 

He was, in fact, put there for the very purpose of pre- 
venting inquisitive foreigners from making sketches or 
photographs of the ancient walls, and it was all I could 
do to preserve my property from confiscation. I had to 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 223 

promise, under oath, that I would make no more expos- 
ures while in Puerto Rican ports, and was kept constantly 
under surveillance, not only at San Juan, but at Ponce, 
and other ports at which we touched. 

I had a belated revenge, though, about ten years later, 
when I went to the island as the accredited representative 
of our Government, and received a special permit to 
photograph from the alcalde municipal of the capital. It 
was most grudgingly bestowed, to be sure, and I was 
cautioned not to turn my camera toward those obsolete 
fortifications. Still, I succeeded in securing some photo- 
graphs of the same ; but it was only after my friend, the 
policeman, who had been detailed to guide and watch me, 
had been told to turn his face the other way, and hold his 
hand behind him ! He was so much impressed with the 
subsequent ceremony that whenever I pitched my camera, 
after that first operation, he voluntarily performed this 
act of courtesy, not once only, but several times, plainly 
showing that, like many another Spaniard, he was afflicted 
with the disease known as the " itching palm " for pesos. 
I had up to that time thought it peculiar to customs 
officials; but this experience convinced me that it was 
universally prevalent. 

I think it is a contagious disease, also, for even the 
press of Peurto Rico seemed inoculated with its virus, 
at the time of my second advent in the island, I distinctly 
recall. The editors I met often reminded me of my friend, 
the policeman — they so frequently turned their backs and 
held their hands behind them ! For example, when a 
member of the diplomatic corps called with me upon the 
newspaper fraternity, though I was received with appar- 
ent cordiality, there was yet a certain constraint which to 
me was unaccountable. My friend, the diplomat, 



224 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

explained to me afterward that perhaps it might be well 
to insert an advertisement of my mission in the most 
prominent papers, and also purchase a goodly number of 
each issue containing it. 

Acting upon this disinterested advice I at once sent 
word to each editor that I would like 50 copies of his 
paper when it should contain items of importance to the 
great American government ! The result was that the 
next day all the important papers of San Juan vied with 
each other in most flattering notices of the " eminent 
commissioner, whose opportune arrival had caused such 
great excitement." 

There was more than a column of this sort, showhig 
plainly that vast leisure was the portion of the insular 
editor and that he was sorely put to it for news. I had 
felt sure that the receipt he sent me was more than ample 
recompense for the price of 50 copies without fulsome 
eulogy. The following is a literal translation of that 
receipt: "El administrador of the Intcgridad National, 
who kisses the hands of your worship, presents his com- 
pliments to Senor Don F. A. Ober and has the great pleas- 
ure of inclosing a receipt for the fifty numbers he had the 
distinguished honor of remitting to him yesterday of the 
above named periodical." 

Now, that was an ordinary receipt for a small sum of 
money, and the editor wrote it himself, which speaks vol- 
umes for newspaper methods as they prevailed in the 
island before the capitulation. 

There was a " crying need " for a good periodical 
printed in Spanish and English (it appeared to 
me) ; but if it existed, that " long- felt-want " has been 
filled, for a printing press went along with the advance 
guards of the American army of occupation. Hardly 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 225 

had our gallant soldiers ceased shooting leaden bullets 
into the resisting Spaniards in Puerto Rico, on receipt of 
the news that the peace protocol had been signed, than 
they began firing paper billets at the inoffensive Puerto- 
Riqueiio. Desire for the latter's enlightenment caused 
" the little red schoolhouse " to be erected on almost every 
hill in the island ; and we know what an army of school- 
ma'ams and masters succeeded to the army of invasion ! 

As an index of West Indian enlightenment, the news- 
papers throughout the islands are likely to lead one far 
astray, for they are mostly edited with an eye to the adver- 
tising columns — strange to say — said advertisements con- 
sisting mainly of Spanish, French, o,r English proprietary 
medicines, chiefly pills and plasters. They are printed on 
coarse paper, and sold at a high price. As a means of 
disseminating information among a population largely 
composed of illiterates, they apparently fail to achieve 
their destiny. 

This brings me to remark upon the characteristics of 
.the Puerto-Riqueiio. He did not seem to have any, 
before the arrival of the Americans, in 1898; or if he had 
any he kept them to himself, having been minded thereto 
by the long centuries of Spanish oppression. Not only 
could I obtain no expression amounting to an opinion 
from the average islander, but absolutely no information 
respecting the island itself save what was open to my 
visual organs. There was a great highway, the '' King's 
Road," running over the mountains, from Ponce to San 
Juan ; several sporadic attempts had been made to build a 
railroad in various parts of the island, but little had been 
accomplished. There was no more information available 
as to the interior of Puerto Rico than there was at that 
time as to the unknown interior of Africa. A rumor was 



226 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

prevalent that at one time a German naturalist had some- 
how worked his way to the interior hills and mountains ; 
but he kept his mouth shut as to what he saw — and per- 
haps this was the price of his permission to explore. 

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, one of 
the editors of a famous and popular magazine came to me 
with a request that I would write an article on Puerto Rico 
for that magazine, as I was the only man he could find 
" who knew anything about the island " ! This may seem 
in the nature of an equivocal compliment ; but I wrote the 
article, nevertheless, and illustrated it with some of the 
photographs I had taken when the policeman's back was 
turned. At that time I drew all my material from Span- 
ish sources, and that same year wrote a book on the island, 
which was probably the first work in English on the sub- 
ject in more than half a century.* Immediately the way 
had been opened by the army, there was a deluge of news- 
paper correspondents and " scientific " writers, who had 
been detached from the various departments in Washing- 
ton, so that the great public, which had been presumably- 
hungering and thirsting for information on Puerto Rico, 
was more than appeased. Hence, I feel that another 
chapter on the subject will be looked upon as somewhat 
supererogatory. 

• But, however much the island has been "written up" 
since the American occupation, there is still something left 
that may be considered worth the while to investigate. 
Regarded as a whole, and as our only possession in the 
American tropics, Puerto Rico has many charms for both 
student and casual tourist. It seems so to me ; but I may 
look at it through glasses that exaggerate its importance. 
I will confess that since the mystery respecting its moun- 
*" Puerto Rico and its Resources," New York, 1898. 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 227 

tains and inland forests has been dispelled, the charms of 
Puerto Rico have lost their freshness. One should gather 
facts, even statistics, while the morning dew is on them, 
as one would gather strawberries. An oft-reiterated fact 
gets stale to nauseousness ; there is no pleasure in follow- 
ing after a party that has beaten a trail to the mountain- 
top. My most blest experiences have been those face to 
face with what I then thought was primitive nature. 

So with Puerto Rico : to visit it now, after other thou- 
sands have tramped its trails and raised the dust on its 
roads, would be wearisome. And if to me, why not, then, 
to others? 

True, why not? Well, the only reason I can give, is 
that perhaps there may be some few who have not yet 
been in Puerto Rico ! To such, perhaps, the island may 
yet gleam afresh in pristine loveliness. For, after all, we 
cannot expect the great Creator to make a new island or 
a new continent for every generation ! It is our misfor- 
tune that the world was made so many years ago, and to 
us is now old, and to some of us, perhaps, somewhat stale. 

I found in an old history of Spain, not long ago, an 
item to the effect that the King of Spain, Ferdinand, hus- 
band of Isabella, had signed a " capitulation " with 
Vicente Yanez Pinzon, quondam companion of Columbus 
on his first voyage, for the conquest and settlement of this 
island, subsequently known as Puerto Rico. Be that as it 
may, it was not until 1508 or 1509 that Ponce de Leon 
landed here, and soon after established a settlement. 

After the Indians had been reduced to subjection the 
Spaniards were for many years harassed by foreign foes 
and by the buccaneers. Historic personages, Hke Drake 
and Hawkins, and two hundred years later Abercromb} 
(who, like Admiral Sampson, in 1898, vainly bombarded 



228 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

San Juan), honored the Spaniards with frequent visits. 
But, notwithstanding these persecutions, and the occa- 
sional hurricanes, which devastated the island, Puerto 
Rico continued to flourish. While Cuba was the prime 
milch cow of Spain, yet Puerto Rico yielded freely, and 
many an official owed his rise to a position here. 

Past and present are inseparably linked, in the affairs 
of this island. For instance, in the Prcsupucstos, or esti- 
mates, for the fiscal year 1887-88, I found this curious 
item, under the head of obligacioncs gcnerales : " Article i 
— To Don Cristobal Colon, Duque de Veragua, three- 
quarters of the obligation acknowledged in favor of his 
defunct ancestor — pesos 3400. To Don Fernando Colon, 
Marques de Barboles, one quarter part of said obligation 
— pesos 850." 

The Duke of Veragua, it may be remembered, was our 
guest during the Exposition year, and a suppliant for our 
favor in the shape of a pension or donation, in recognition 
of the doings of his reputed ancestor, Don Cristobal 
Columbus. He was not a bad-looking man, as I recall 
him, having the air of a well-to-do " Britisher," and in 
fact was a breeder of fine bulls for fighting in the ring. 
His degenerate brother, the Marquis de Barboles, was a 
shrunken, monkey-like apology of a man, who went 
about clinging to his elder brother's coat-tails, and fre- 
quently ejaculating, at intervals, " Where do I come in?" 
meaning, thereby, that he wanted his proportional share 
of the donation, whenever it might be donated. And 
these two, following after a long line of non-resident an- 
cestors, depended upon Puerto Rican bounty for many 
years. 

Spain did all she could to wreck the island; and yet 
after the United States government took possession, it 




<3 






PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 229 

was charged that the Spanish market more than com- 
pensated for the Spanish steahngs. After the great hur- 
ricane of August, 1899, it became the custom to charge 
all evil happenings to the change of ownership, and the 
new government was made a universal scapegoat. And 
yet, see what. that government has done for Puerto Rico. 
Look at the schools it has founded, the money it has lav- 
ishly poured out, in an effort to make amends for the 
sins it never committed! 

The enthusiasm with which the islanders received our 
army continued to sustain itself until it was seen, by one 
class, that the incoming Americans had not made them 
all independently rich, and by another that they had not 
freed them from their century-long condition of abject 
poverty. Having welcomed their " Heaven-sent deliv- 
erers," as they styled them, with effusive joy, and in the 
Spanish fashion invited them in to help themselves, the 
natives next looked forward to receiving an exceedingly 
great reward. But it did not immediately materialize, 
and they became, if possible, even poorer than before. 
Then came the hurricane, the most disastrous in cen- 
turies, and that, too, was charged against the Yankees. 
Thus, for a time the military government of the island 
had a very " hard row to hoe." But it hoed it, neverthe- 
less — at the expense of our government. The Puerto 
Ricans were fed from our overflowing granaries, they 
received millions of rations gratis, and, after that, mil- 
lions of dollars were returned to them which had been 
received as duties on their goods. Still, it is not a matter 
of record that the islanders -ever murmured a single 
expression of thanks ! 

It was ascertained that most of the sugar-planters, 
instead of having been ruined by the hurricane, as was 



230 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

pathetically reported, had actually benefited by it, owing 
to the sedimentation from the hill-washings, which was 
spread like a fertile blanket over their lowland acres, 
enriching their exhausted soils beyond belief. The cof- 
fee planters suffered more ; but they soon rose from their 
ashes and joined in the general hue and cry that they had 
lost the market of Spain, without having received an 
adequate return. That they, in common with all others, 
had received the priceless boon of freedom, did not count 
for anything at all, in their estimate of results. 

There remain the laboring classes, which comprise the 
bulk of Puerto Rico's population, and which were the 
recipients of charity from the United States to such an 
extent that the term " laboring class " was practically 
discarded. It was a misnomer, anyway, for there is no 
class in the island that has ever earned this distinctive 
appellation. They reside mainly in the mountain dis- 
tricts, but their mouth-pieces, the native politicians, dwell 
in the towns and cities of the coast, where they readily 
reached the ears and the purses of sympathetic Amer- 
icans. Accepting their doleful tales, thousands of poor 
people starved to death during the military interregnum, 
and in proof of the truth of their assertions they dis- 
patched carefully-coached delegations of emaciated men 
and barefoot women to San Juan, there to beard the 
governor in his castle. 

To one who knows the island and its almost limitless 
resources, this story of starvation seems false on its face ; 
but perhaps the best refutation of it — at least inferentially 
— is to recite why the Puerto Rican need not starve, 
instead of entering a simple denial. 

In the first place, compare the climatic conditions of 
the tropical zone in which lies Puerto Rico with those of 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 231 

our own so-called temperate region: perpetual summer 
on the one hand, contrasted with most rigorous winter 
on the other more than six months of the year. The 
Puerto Rican, then, has no winter to provide against, with 
its consequent expenses for comfortable habitation, fuel, 
and clothing. And by the Puerto Rican is meant the 
gibaro, or peasant laborer, about whom the politicians 
were so tenderly solicitous. He is the present repre- 
sentative of a long line of paupers extending through 
centuries, not one of whom ever possessed a dollar 
over night or had a voice in the management of insular 
affairs'. 

He is a veritable peon, or slave of ancestral and cumu- 
lative debt, and in probably nine cases out of ten is owned 
body and soul by the sugar, coffee, or tobacco raiser, who 
was clamoring so loudly that he should " have his rights," 
and so insistent upon the return of those " millions wrung 
as customs from unwilling contributors." 

Well, without seeking to involve the gibaro in politics — 
except, perhaps, to show how he has been a contributory 
cause of discontent, let us show how nearly impossible it 
is for him to starve, or even to suffer severely, save 
through his own fault. In the matter of a habitation he 
is content with the merest shelter from the elements, and 
if he were ordinarily industrious (which he is not) the 
head of a family might erect such a shelter as suffices the 
average Puerto Rican in less than two days. First, four 
holes are dug in the ground, into which four posts are 
inserted and set erect. These are connected by frame- 
works of smaller poles, which are covered with palm 
leaves, and the " house " is made. This is the simplest 
type of dwelling, such as generally answers the needs 
of the peon. The floor is of hardened mud or clay, and 



232 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

sometimes the wattled sides are plastered over with mud 
or mortar ; sometimes the hut is constructed of palm 
boards, and well thatched with palm leaves or yagua 
shingles, made of palm spathes. 

The giharo's house costs him nothing but a little labor, 
and is mainly set up without nails, or any furnishings 
whatever from the stores. The palms, growing every- 
where in the country, yield all necessary materials. For 
the simple utensils used in his domestic economy, the 
householder goes to another tree, the calabash, the fruit 
of which is converted into vessels of various sizes, such 
as dishes and water bottles, plates and spoons, while the 
yagua of the royal palm furnishes tubs for washing 
clothes in, cradles for the babies, wrappers for cigars, 
and all bundles that are to be kept dry, and even founda- 
tions for the rude beds which, when hammocks are not 
used, are spread upon the iloor at night. From two 
species of palms, the royal and the cocoa, and the cala- 
bash, the Puerto Rican obtains ample material for his 
house and its equipment. 

This hut is called a hohio, in contradistinction to the 
house of the town, which is usually built of stone, is much 
more pretentious and is known as the casa. 

To establish the fact already asserted, that the natives 
of the island are extremely poor and shiftless, I will refer 
to the report of Brigadier General Davis, in which he says 
of these people : 

" They live in h'uts made of sticks and poles, covered 
with thatches of palm leaves. A family of a dozen may 
be huddled together in one room, often with only a dirt 
floor. They have little food worthy the name, and only 
the most scanty clothing, while children of less than seven 
or eight years are often entirely naked. A few may own 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 233 

a machete or hoe, but more have no worldly possessions 
whatever. Their food is fruit, and if they are wage- 
earners, a little rice and codfish in addition. They are 
without ambition, and see no incentive to labor beyond 
the least that will provide the barest sustenance." 

We have seen that a newly coupled pair of Puerto 
Ricans just starting out in life incurred no expense what- 
ever for a dwelling; and, judging from the statistics, fur- 
nished during Spanish domination, no great amount was 
squandered on the marriage ceremony ; for out of twenty- 
five thousand births in 1887, for instance, eleven thou- 
sand were illegitimate. 

Let it be assumed, then, that a pair of gibaros may be 
established in domicile, or en casa, without the expendi- 
ture of a dollar. What will be the household expenses, 
as the months and years roll by ? 

House and furnishings they already have. The first 
necessity, fuel for fire (for culinary purposes only), lies 
in the fields or woods at or near their door. An iron pot 
has been begged, borrowed, or stolen, and no other kitchen 
utensil is actuall}' necessary except a knife, which is sup- 
plied by the machete, universally carried by the peon, and 
which is never out of his sight or grasp. The machete 
is so much a part and parcel of the gibaro's outfit that he 
only attracts attention when it is absent. He acquires it 
early in life, and parts with it only through stern neces- 
sity, as, for example, when funds are needed for gambling 
or for betting on a favorite fighting cock. 

With the machete the peon hews down the trees for 
corner posts to his hut, lops off the leaves of palm for 
thatch and bedding, digs holes for setting out tubers and 
plants, and sometimes, thoiagh rarely, removes the weeds 
from his garden. 



234 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

" Fingers were made before forks," is an axiom so self- 
evident that no peon ever gives it a thought, and the Httle 
toddlers that soon in time gather around the household 
hearth, or the fire-bed in the center of the hut, follow the 
example of their elders and eat without any other assist- 
ance than their own chubby hands, which they dip into the 
pot, like the others. 

The only expense for garments is incurred by the adult 
members of the family, and probably does not aggregate 
$5 a year. Until the age of seven to ten, the children go 
about as naked as they were born. 

In order to impress my readers with the fact that the 
Puerto Riquefio, even the poverty-stricken giharo, may 
have quite an extensive range to his dietary, I have ven- 
tured to imagine him engaged in celebrating the last of 
the dias dc fiesta, or feast days, which has been bestowed 
upon him by a paternal government — our time-honored 
" Thanksgiving." 

Taking the island of Puerto Rico as typical of our 
tropical possessions, lying as it does nearer to our shores 
than Hawaii or the Philippines, and on a median line of 
latitude as compared with the others, we shall find 
Thanksgiving Day, or Dia dc Gracias, as it is there 
termed, honored by the closing of government offices and 
appropriately observed. The stores are open on half- 
time only, the plantation works are idle, and the people of 
town and country seize the occasion for visiting. 

As an excuse* for idleness merely, the Puerto Rican 
laborer hails the Dia de Gracias with joy and promises 
himself indulgence in a danza, or, perchance, a sur- 
reptitious cock-fight. Coming, as it does, at or near the 
end of the much-dreaded hurricane season. Thanksgiving 
ofifers even the punctilious Puerto Rican- a good excuse 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 235 

for joining in festivities, participation in which he might 
be averse to by training, though not from temperament. 

Distant from the equator less than twenty degrees, 
Puerto Rico's Thanksgiving event takes place in sunny, 
summer weather, with the temperature somewhere up in 
the nineties. All nature is abloom at this season and the 
air is filled with the promise of harvests. Provided the 
season has passed without the visitation of a hurricane, 
evidences of the fruitful soil are on every hand. Along 
the coast the cocoa palm droops its head above heavy 
clusters of nuts shining golden in the sun ; warm-hued 
bananas hang invitingly from their stalks ; breadfruits 
are ripening on stately trees with deep-lobed leaves. Then 
there are oranges, limes, lemons, guavas, sapadillas, 
mangos, custard apples, etc., — in fact, all fruits that are 
grown in equatorial regions. Prominent among the 
fruits native to Puerto Rico and the West Indies in gen- 
eral is the delicious pineapple, which the first Spanish 
conquerors found growing here, cultivated by the natives. 

So far as the giharo's table is concerned, it cannot be 
said, in the language of Pope, " Viands of various kinds 
allure the taste," for they certainly do not. The average 
Puerto Riqueno is a vegetarian, perforce; yet there are 
certain indigenous animals, both birds and quadrupeds, 
that would yield him at least a taste of flesh on occasion, 
were he possessed of any skill at all as hunter or trapper. 
While the fauna of Puerto Rico is not extensive and no 
large animals have there their habitat, there are a few 
small quadrupeds that would serve excellently to furnish 
the Thanksgiving table in the giharo's humble hut. There 
is the agouti, for instance {Dasyprocta agouti), a little 
hare-like and inoffensive animal, with glossy, snuff-brown 
coat and a sensitive nose with which he sometimes ferrets 



236 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

out the native tubers, like the yam and eddoe. Inasmuch 
as he prowls about the " provision grounds " on the 
borders of the woods and takes toll therefrom, it is no 
more than just that the native biped should make him pay- 
therefor — always provided he can catch the agouti. 

He would prove a welcome substitute for turkey, and 
so would another small animal which, like the agouti, is 
getting scarce in Puerto Rico, the armadillo. Properly 
cooked in his shell (which shell, according to Sir Walter 
Raleigh, " appeareth somewhat like unto that of a Rino- 
cero"), the armadillo surpasses quail or turkey in the 
flavor of its tender flesh. It must be cooked by a master, 
though — a " real and truly " chef, one who has been bred 
on a plantation and taken a cruise or two along the Span- 
ish Main. 

There is but one meat tenderer than quail or armadillo, 
and that is of the iguana, the' large arboreal lizard that 
inhabits the lowlands of all the West Indian islands. It 
should be stewed with yam, plantain, etc., to be perfectly 
palatable. The streams of Puerto Rico still yield abun- 
dantly of crayfish (in the Spanish islands called camar- 
o)ics), and in the hills are found the migratory land 
crabs, both crustaceans forming delicious adjuncts to a 
Thanksgiving menu and eagerly sought by the natives. 
From the salt waters that surround the island a great, var- 
iety of fish may be extracted, and there are mussels and 
oysters, but of inferior quality. 

Leaving the native fruits aside, it is not likely that 
strangers temporarily resident in Puerto Rico, such as the 
soldiers and office-holders, will draw heavily upon the 
articles enumerated as provand for the " Dia de Gracias" ; 
at least, not so long as the steamers connecting v/ith the 
United States run regularly and cold-storage plants of 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 237 

capacity exist at Ponce and San Juan. In point of fact, 
the non-resident Americans, as well as the natives of 
town and city, are becoming increasingly dependent upon 
cold storage, especially for viands of superior quality. 
Throughout the West Indies, not alone in Puerto Rico, 
fruit and fowl are generally regarded as " by-products," 
that may come up somehow, anyhow, in the nature of a 
providential dispensation. This may account for their 
general inferiority, for the tropical climate is particularly 
adapted to the raising of both, especially domestic fowl. 

And "as to turkey, that bird without which Thanksgiv- 
ing Day would be considered lacking in the first requisite 
for feasting, it may be remarked that Puerto Rico proba- 
bly received it many years before the territory now 
known as the United States was permanently settled by 
Europeans. It is generally conceded by naturalists that 
the first European turkey came from Mexico ; though 
there are those who declare that the Cabots took it to 
England in the last decade of the fifteenth century. 

This sketch of the island's resources in the matter of 
providing for the table from its own products suggests 
comparison with some land less favored by nature in 
the North, New England, for example. See what enor- 
mous natural advantages the former possesses over the 
latter. Note the great central range of mountains, 
rising 3600 feet in Yunque, with ramifications east and 
west, north and south ; with its thousand rivers, short- 
lived, it is true, but with great possibilities for irrigation, 
electric and water power. There are scores of water- 
falls, some of large size, and at least one stream has 
been found by American engineers capable of 1000 
horse-power. 

Compare these two regions climatically, and contrast 



238 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

New England, with its rigorous winters and short 
summers, with the perpetual summer-land of Puerto 
Rico. Lying between the i8th and 19th degrees of 
north latitude, its climate is tropical along the coasts, 
but in the interior almost temperate. One can secure 
a radical change of climate by riding a few hours 
mountain-wards, as well as a change in fruits and veg- 
etation. 

The population of the island, about 900,000, and 
composed in great part of poverty-stricken half- and 
quarter-breeds, ignorant, even illiterate, we may also 
compare with that of New England, with its high 
standards of education and morality. There is no 
standard of morality here, all observers agree ; but it is 
not altogether the fault of the simple-minded people. 
They found obstacles in the way of lawful wedlock, 
so they dispensed with the ceremony to a great extent. 

They have felt the oppressive restrictions of a distant 
and severe government, so they have concluded it to be 
altogether futile to attempt the laying up of riches or 
the accumulation of worldly goods. Their antepasados, 
also, some of them leading back to paupers and criminals, 
transported at the state's expense, have not bequeathed 
to them a very hopeful heritage. 

The Rev. Father Sherman, who traveled over the 
island shortly after we took possession, reported the 
children as quick to learn, precocious even, and very sus- 
ceptible of becoming Americanized. He found the 
natives, though nominally Catholics, practically pagans ; 
a large proportion of them illiterate, and resorting to 
most barbarous practices respecting the inhumation 
of their dead. 

Church and State have gone hand in hand here in 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 239 

Puerto Rico, as in Cuba, and the first step of our govern- 
ment will be — has been, in fact — to dissociate them, 
to the vast benefit of the people at large. Intramural 
inhumations will no longer be permitted and the people 
will no longer support a church which they have out- 
grown or discarded. 

In attempting to predict the future of this island, one 
must base his assumptions upon its permanent possession 
by the United States, and the .integrity of those delegated 
to authority here. We cannot doubt that, unless 
deprived of it by unforeseen casualties of war, we shall 
always hold it as an integral portion of our great Repub- 
lic. We cannot assume otherwise than that those sent 
to rule it shall be actuated by the highest motives of 
patriotism and disinterestedness. 

Here, then, are two factors making for success at the 
outset, and calculated to infuse new vigor into the 
jaded proprietors of overworked lands and estates. 
Scientific agriculture will become the hand-maiden of 
government, and there is not a square mile of the island 
that will not feel its beneficent influence. 

There are, as we know, limitations to tropical agri- 
culture in a small island like Puerto Rico, with its 3600 
miles of area; but what, in my opinion, will be the most 
interesting, if not profitable, outcome of this acquisition 
by our government of a truly tropical possession, will be 
the opportunity for experimentation in a field entirely 
new to us. That is, we have never yet entertained the 
possibilities of tropical agriculture ; we have devoted all 
the great resources of our agricultural colleges and 
departments to the exploitation of products solely of the 
temperate zone. 

Does it not now dawn upon us that heire before us is 



240 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

outspread a limitless field for investigation and experi- 
ment? Tropical agriculture has never been subjected to 
the scientific harnessing, to the analysis of trained profes- 
sors and experts, as it will be soon. I predict, in truth, that 
not many years will elapse before we shall have chairs 
of Tropical Agriculture and Horticulture in our colleges. 
A new world has been opened to us — whether we retain 
the Philippines or not ; whether we continue in control 
of Puerto -Rico or not — by the mere suggestion of their 
occupancy, be it permanent or temporary. 

It is not. on record, I believe, that our governmental 
geological surveys have ever located any great bodies of 
mineral lands ; but there ought to be a field for an 
expert in the West Indies, one who could authorita- 
tively inform us as to the existence of auriferous terri- 
tory, if there be any. However, there is gold in Puerto 
Rico. There was gold there before its discovery by 
Columbus in 1493, as the golden ornaments of the natives 
proved. When, in 1508, Ponce de Leon, the famed 
seeker after the Fountain of Youth, first reached the 
island, he was hospitably entertained by the Indian 
cacique Agueynaba, who presented him with fine speci- 
mens of gold obtained from the river beds in the western 
part of the island. Ponce was so excited that he could 
hardly rest until he had sent to Santo Domingo, the 
island whence he had invaded Puerto Rico, for soldiers 
to accompany him in his search for gold in the interior. 

It was gold that he was after, as well as Columbus 
and all the other Spaniards of their time, and that they 
got the precious metal in quantities the official records 
of the Spanish Government attest. The city of Caparra 
was founded in 15 10, but owing to the .strong desire of 
the Spaniards to search for gold it was practically 



PUERTO RICO, SPANISH, AMERICAN 241 

without inhabitants during the first two years of its 
existence, since every able-bodied man was sifting the 
sands of the rivers that came down from the mountains. 
The Indians were impressed at the very outset, and soon 
all those who came within reach of the white men were 
aiding the Spaniards in their investigations. At last it 
became so unbearable that Cacique Agueynaba resolved 
to either put an end to Spanish oppressions or himself 
receive his quietus. 

He had been told that the Spaniards were immortal, 
and for a time he believed it, seeing them come up out 
of the sea in almost endless processions. But, like the 
canny Scotchman who lived in story afterward, he had 
his " doots " at last, and resolved to test the theory by an 
original application of the water cure. That is, he cap- 
tured a Spaniard alone in the mountains, and held his 
head under the water of a stream for two or three hours. 
Then he took him to the bank and sat beside him for 
two days, or until he received incontestable evidence of 
his demise. Such heroic treatment put an end for a time 
to gold hunting in Puerto Rico, for, the Spaniards resent- 
ing it and getting after the cacique, an insurrection 
followed which was not put down until the Indians were 
practically exterminated. 

Still, traditions of gold in the island lingered through 
the centuries, the stories stimulated every now and then 
by rich finds by natives who washed the sands in a 
shiftless manner with wooden dishes and without system. 
There are, in fact, people living in Puerto Rico to-day 
who gain a livelihood by gold washing, pursued in just 
the same way as their ancestors before them followed 
it, and as it is carried on, also, in the adjacent island of 
Santo Domingo. 



242 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

The same conditions prevail in Puerto Rico as in Santo 
Domingo, though gold washing in the former island has 
not been so persistently carried on as in the latter, where 
the rivers are less numerous, but at the same time larger. 

It is safe to say that the mineral resources of Puerto 
Rico have not yet been fully exploited, though the rivers 
may no longer pour down golden sands, as of yore. It 
is in the heart of the mountains, in the great Luquillo 
range, that search should be carried on, where many of 
the rivers running to the coasts have their origin. 



XV 

THINGS WORTH SEEING IN PUERTO' RICO 

How the writer is handicapped — The two great attractions of 
the island — San Juan, the Morro, and walls of circumval- 
lation — Casa Blanca, one-time residence of Ponce de Leon 
— Whence he sailed to search for the Fountain of Youth — 
The courteous Puerto-Riquefios — When the Stars and Stripes 
were first unfurled here — The Governor General's palace — 
Suburbs of San Juan — The glorious views down the coast — 
A fragmentary railroad — Arecibo and Aguadilla — Monkey 
Island and the Mona Passage — Mayaguez, Hormi- 
gueros, and San German — Yauco and the port where Amer- 
ican troops first landed — Ponce and its Parque de Bombas — 
Schools, teachers, and scholars of the island — The com- 
posite population — The Spanish-Arabic fonda and the siesta 
. — The great road over the mountains — Mineral baths of 
Coamo — Aybonito, and the fighting there when the protocol 
was signed — Tropical scenery and temperate climate — Re- 
gion of coffee, cacao, and royal palm — Descent of the moun- 
tains from Cayey to San Juan. 

SINCE the island of Puerto Rico became an Amer- 
ican possession, many meritorious works have 
appeared describing it and treating of every 
phase of life and nature there. As our first, and at 
present only holding in the American tropics, it has 
received particular attention, and like Cuba has, perhaps, 
been " done to death " by bookwriters and newspaper 
correspondents. Still, the newspaper article is ephemeral, 
and the life of a book scarcely ever exceeds two or three 
years, while new readers are constantly appearing; so I 

243 



244 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

will venture anew to exploit the attractions of an island 
which I was among the first, if not the very first, to bring 
to the attention of the American public. 

The two great attractions of Puerto Rico, in my hum- 
ble opinion, are the city of San Juan and the military 
road over the mountains between that city and Ponce. San 
Juan is the oldest city in the United States — assuming 
the island to be actually ours — as it is a contemporary of 
Baracoa and Santiago de Cuba, and forty years older 
than Saint Augustine, in Florida. It is also the only 
walled city within our jurisdiction, and is universally con- 
ceded to be among the finest specimens of military archi- 
tecture in the New World. Situated as it is, upon an 
island standing well out from the main into the sea, with 
its massive walls of circumvallation from fifty to one 
hundred feet high, it presents a most imposing spectacle. 
Trapezoidal in shape, the city rises amphitheater-like 
from the peaceful bay within the curvature of its walls, 
while upon the ocean front of the little island upon which 
it is built heavy surfs of the Atlantic roll and thunder. 

The seaward or western front of the island is so pre- 
cipitous, and the water close to land so deep that one 
might toss a stone ashore as the steamer enters. Here 
stands the faro, or light-tower, which has for many years 
borne a lantern 170 feet above the sea, and is one of the 
first artificial objects to claim attention as the island is 
approached. This lighthouse stands within the citadel 
known as Morro Castle, which in Spanish hands was a 
small military town in itself, with chapel, barracks, bomb- 
proofs, and dismal dungeons down by the sea. It v/as 
completed as long ago as 1584, and is in shape an obtuse 
angle, with three tiers of batteries facing the sea, placed 
one above another, so that their concentrated fires shall 



n 



SIGHTS IN PUERTO RICO 245 

cross. This old citadel was the beginning of the vast 
wall which completely incloses the city, and which was 
planned in its entirety in 1630, but not completed until 
1771. The complement of the Morro in the west end of 
the island is the fortress of San Cristobal at- the east, 
which faces oceanwards and also guards the approaches 
from the mainland. It is entered by a ramp on the high- 
est part of the hill, where its fortifications are cut out of 
the soHd rock, and commands, with its tiers of guns, the 
city and the inner harbor. 

Beneath the ocean wall of the citadel lies the cemetery, 
where, in old-world fashion, most of the dead are 
" pigeon-holed " in Coluuiharia, and where, until the 
American occupation, the graves of common people were 
merely rented for a term of years, at the end of which 
their remains were turned out to make room for others. 
All this is changed now, as well as the rigid rules relaxed 
by which the fortifications were rendered inaccessible to 
strangers. There is now no need for secrecy, and with 
a permit from the commandant one may ramble at will 
over walls and into casemates which at one time could 
only be visited at the peril of one's life. 

While the churches, with their wealth of treasure and 
ornament, their priceless relics and ancient architecture, 
will claim much attention, of course, yet the structure 
that will most occupy one's thoughts will probably be the 
" Casa Blanca," one-time castle of old Ponce de Leon. 
It stands within a garden surrounded by a crenelated 
wall, upon a bluff, from which, through the cocoa palms, 
there is a glorious view of the beautiful bay and the dis- 
tant mountains. Be sure to visit it at sunset, or by moon- 
light, and, sentiment aside, those who love the beautiful in 
nature will be well rewarded. 



246 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

It might be well to inquire, at this point, into the his- 
toric values of this Spanish-American city, with its 
memories extending back to the days of Ponce de Leon 
and Columbus. 

It was in November, 1493, that Columbus, then on his 
second vo}-age to America, first sighted the lofty moun- 
tains of this island, and called it San Juan Bautista. Its 
native name was Borinquen, and subsequently, in some 
way it came to be called Puerto Rico, or the Rich Port, 
after the harbor of Aguadilla, on the western coast. 
Columbus did not revisit the island, and for several years 
it was left alone by the European voyagers, who were 
now flitting to and fro in the West Indies. But in 1509 
the governor of the eastern province of Hispaniola, or 
Santo Domingo, Ponce de Leon, made an expedition 
liither and discovered that the island was inhabited by a 
gentle tribe of Indians, who warmly welcomed him to 
their country. Wherever the Spaniard went war was 
inevitable, and soon the Indians suffered so much that 
they attacked the invaders in sheer desperation. The 
eventual outcome for them was extinction, and not one 
descendant of those people remains alive to-day. Having 
" pacified " the country, after the customary Spanish 
fashion. Ponce de Leon founded a city, which he called 
Caparra, and from which he removed to the site of San 
Juan, in 1511. 

It was in 1512, aS all Americans know, that he set forth 
on that romantic quest for the " Fountain of Youth," 
which resulted in the discovery of Florida, and it was on 
his return from this voyage that he built the castle now 
called Casa Blanca. It was from this castle that he went 
out on his last voyage, in 1521, and from v/hich he never 
came back alive. Slain by an Indian arrow, on the coast 



SIGHTS IN PUERTO RICO 247 

of Florida, his remains were borne back to his home in 
San Juan, where they have been kept in a leaden case, 
in the church of Santo Domingo. 

Such are some of the fascinating historical reminis- 
cences that recur to one, while looking out, from the 
citadel or from Casa Blanca, down upon the beautiful 
bay which has been the scene of world-renowned exploits. 
There is no other such spot within the confines of our 
country where such great names are linked with such 
deeds and scenery. 

Within the walls of the city are gathered about 20,000 
people, with perhaps half as many more in the suburbs 
outside ; and it is among these natives that the visitor will 
find much material of interest for note-book and camera. 

Although brought within the restraints of American 
rule, the natives still hanker for the pleasures of the bull- 
fight and cock-pit, and Sunday is their chiefest holiday. 
But they are mild and courteous, even the raggedest of 
them, and (unless their opinion changes) seem to think 
the conquering Americanos the greatest people on earth. 
It is in the plazas and the market-places that they should 
be studied, where many of the poorer people come with 
the produce of field and garden, and the richer come to 
buy. They are thoroughly Hispanicized, like their archi- 
tecture, which is well adapted to the exigencies of the 
tropical climate. 

It was on the i8th of October, 1898, that the Stars and 
Stripes first flew officially above the ramparts of San Juan 
and the Morro. On that day, at noon, the United States 
Commissioners, General Brooke, Admiral Schley, and 
General. Gordon, met the officials designated by Spain, 
and coming out of the palace with many naval officers, 
formed on the right side of the plaza. At the report of 



248 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the first gun from the Morro, the flag of our country 
was hoisted, while the band played the " Star Spangled 
Banner." It was not until the ist of May, 1900, that 
military rule in Puerto Rico was replaced, and the first 
civil governor, Mr. Allen, a native of Massachusetts, was 
installed. The ceremony took place at the palace, where 
the Spanish governor general had once resided, and was 
a function of considerable importance. 

The governor general's palace, built upon the " plata- 
forma " of Santa Catalina, San Juan, is now, as it was 
under the Spanish regime, the official residence of the 
military commander-in-chief and civil governor. It is a 
large and handsome structure, adorned with marble and 
elegantly furnished. 

There are interesting suburbs within easy reach of the 
capital, such as Rio Piedras and Carolina, connected by 
tramway, the former with about a thousand inhabitants, 
a tl:ieater, casa dc rccrco, or country palace for the author- 
ities, etc., and beyond which runs the great military road 
to Ponce. Then there is the hamlet of San Turce, the 
pretty suburb of Cangrejos, with its summer gardens and 
summer houses, and across the bay the quaint Catafio and 
Bayamon, in a district where lie the ruins of the first set- 
tlement, Caparra. 

A week might well be passed in and about San Juan, 
but two or three days will suffice to exhaust its major 
attractions ; though the time is coming when the city will 
be chosen as an all-the-winter resort, with its equable 
temperature of from 75 to 80 degrees, its cool sea breezes 
from the northeast "trades," and its most fascinating 
architecture. 

The coast views are glorious, and may be enjoyed, 
from the decks of comfortable steamers, or while travel- 



SIGHTS IN PUERTO RICO 249 

ing by rail on land. A comprehensive railwa}' system 
was at one time projected around the entire island, to be 
more than 300 miles in length, the first section being from 
San Juan to Camuy, 62 miles, passing through the flour- 
ishing town of Arecibo, in the roadstead of which the 
steamers stop for cargoes of sugar, coming out of the 
fertile valley that here descends from the Utuado moun- 
tains. The main stream, at the mouth of which lies 
Arecibo, is fed by numerous others, which form beautiful 
cascades and are overhung with luxuriant vegetation, 
while seven miles distant is a great cave, which is locally 
famous. 

Aguadilla, the west end of the island, is the port at 
which Columbus landed in 1493, and is famous for its 
fruits, flowers, and tropical scenery. Ofif in the channel 
between Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo rises the soli- 
tary and unique island, Mona, or the Monkey, which 
gives its name to the Mona Passage between the two 
larger islands. It is apparently of volcanic origin, its 
shores rising perpendicularly to a great height, and at 
the north end is a bold headland capped by an overhang- 
ing mass of rock with the suggestive name of Caigo o 
no Caigo — "Shall I fall or not?" A few half savage 
fishermen, wild goats, bulls, and swine, inhabit the island, 
while waterfowl innumerable make it their home. 

Next south from Aguadilla is Mayaguez, a larger city, 
ranking the third in the island after Ponce and San Juan 
as a commercial center, exporting large quantities of cof- 
fee, pineapples, and cocoanuts. The contiguous moun- 
tains reduce the temperature to less than eighty degrees 
throughout the year, and send down delightful streams, 
among them the River Mayaguez, the sands of which at 
one time yielded gold. 



250 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Beyond Mayaguez lies the straggling village of 
Hormigueros, eight miles from which is the city of San 
German, which lies astride a long, uneven hill above the 
double valley of Boqueron-Juanajibos, and has been com- 
pared to a vast garden, filled with orange, lemon, and 
tamarind trees, coffee, cotton, cacao, and sugar-cane. 

Sixteen miles southeast of San German is the hamlet of 
Yauco, connected by railroad with the city of Ponce. It 
has a fine climate and good water, and has a cart road to 
the port of Guanica, which has a population of about 
1000 people. The port, in fact, is better known than the 
town, for it was here that General Miles landed his troops, 
in July, 1898, when for the first time Puerto Rico was 
invaded by the Americans. Here began those military 
operations which took our soldiers as far as Mayaguez, 
and subsequently from the port. of Ponce to Aybonito on 
the military road. 

Ponce, which bears the name of the first Adelantado, is 
the chief city of the island, and has the most numerous 
population. It cannot be considered an attractive city, 
situated as it is three miles from its port right down in a 
dusty plain ; but it may be worth visiting for the sake of 
comparison with other places. 

The central feature of Ponce is its plaza, in the center 
of which is the Parqiie de Bomhas, or firemen's parade 
ground, where the boinberos frequently come out for 
exercise, in all the pomp of uniforms and with antiquated 
" tubs." Without the picturesque accessories of San 
Juan, Ponce yet holds its own, its houses being well built, 
and its markets well supplied. During the heydey of 
Spanish occupation it boasted three fine hotels, three large 
military barracks, two excellent hospitals, two or three 
casinos, a municipal library, a bank, a home-of-refuge, 



SIGHTS IN PUERTO RICO 251 

two churches (inckiding the only Protestant church in 
the island), a town hall, parks, plazas, gas works, and two 
cemeteries. One of the first centers of population to feel 
and yield to American impressions. Ponce soon forged 
ahead at a lively pace, and promised great things for the 
incoming foreigners. 

Here you will find some of the best schools in the 
island, which were established under American super- 
vision. If there is one thing more than another that 
strikes the visitor with surprise, it is the wonderful ad- 
vance the native pupils of the average schools have 
made in the acquisition of English. It was, to be sure, a 
novelty, and they seized upon it with avidity; but aside 
from this, it is an admitted fact that the Puerto Rican 
children are remarkably bright and acquisitive. This is 
shown by the fact that they mastered in six months all the 
studies usually allotted for a year in the schools of their 
grade in the States. This precocity does not necessarily 
indicate a high degree of intelligence, but rather an apti- 
tude for elementary learning. There is no discrimination 
in the schools on account of birth or color, for these new 
neighbors of ours are strictly democratic in the best sense 
of the term. 

As to the teachers, most of whom are natives of Puerto 
Rico, it may be said that they are competent, faithful, 
conscientious, and earnest in their endeavors to bring 
their work up to the American models. Several hundred 
of them visited the United States in the summer of 1904, 
for the purpose of study and sight-seeing. Photographs 
of the native teachers, as well as of the pupils, indicate 
that a large proportion of the island's population shows 
traces of negro or Indian blood; yet there are many 
families directly descended from ancestry of high degree 



252 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

in Spain, as well as others of French, German, and Italian 
lineage. Nearly all are of a pronounced brunette type, 
the blonde being a rarity, as in old Spain. If there are 
any characteristics for which the ladies are distinguished, 
they are amiability, intelligence, and sweetness of disposi- 
tion. They are not now so rigidly secluded and guarded 
as their sex in the mother country, especially since the 
advent of the Americans ; but the best of them were not 
often seen outside their houses in the daytime, except at 
some festive or religious function, when they were usually 
accompanied by attendants. 

It is not often that one may ride from the coast of an 
island to the summit of a mountain nearly three thousand 
feet, over easy gradients and without fatigue; but one may 
do it here. One of the most creditable works here of the 
Spanish engineers (perhaps the greatest since the fortifi- 
cations of San Juan were built) is this wonderful highway 
across the island, connecting the two chief ports of Puerto 
Rico. The island itself is only one hundred miles in 
length by about thirty in breadth, and the distance 
between Ponce and San Juan not over 60 miles, in a 
straight line ; but as the high mountain chain lies between 
them (and owing, as some say, to the fact that the road 
was built on contract, by the mile) the connecting high- 
way is about 85 miles in total length. 

The capital is due northeast from Ponce, but for nearly 
half the distance out from the former the course is almost 
south, with many a curve and twist, and then westerly, 
gradually approaching the southern coast. Although the 
Spaniards are not celebrated as road-builders, nor for the 
attainments of their engineers, yet this road is a monu- 
ment to Spanish pluck and skill. 

The first place of importance is the hamlet of Coamo, 



SIGHTS IN PUERTO RICO 253 

which has most wonderful medico-mineral springs, sup- 
pl3ang the baths of an establishment which has existed 
for centuries, known as the " Bafios de Coamo." The 
water is thermal, clear, and limpid, with strong sulphur- 
ous odor, and gushes forth in great volume. 

Coamo was entered by American troops, pressing up 
from Ponce, in August, 1898, and was quickly captured 
without resistance. It lies at an elevation above the sea 
so great that the breezes from the coasts are now appreci- 
ably cooler; but the highest point is reached at Aybonito 
(or Ajbonito, meaning " How Beautiful "), which is 
3000 feet above the city we left in the morning. As 
Aybonito is about midway the journey, it would be an 
agreeable resting-place for the night, even though its 
buildings are not in keeping with its natural charms. At 
this elevation, nearly half a mile above the sea in perpen- 
dicular height, will be found much to enchain the atten- 
tion of the traveler. 

It was at Aybonito, the middle of August, 1898, that 
the news reached our army of occupation of the signing 
of the protocol that terminated hostilities between the 
United States and Spain. 

At Aybonito we have reached an altitude equal to half 
that of Mount Washington, yet as it is within the tropics 
we find — instead of chilly winds, snow and ice, that half 
the year make the latter impossible of ascent — the flow- 
ers and plants of spring and summer time. We have left 
behind us the heated coast, with its fields of sugar cane 
and groves of cocoa palms, and are now in a region where 
the temperature is equable and delightful. The road dips 
into valleys and sweeps around the slopes of hills, cross- 
ing roaring streams over arched bridges of solid masonry, 
and plunges into the shade of sweet-scented forests. We 



254 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

are now in the region of coffee, cacao, tobacco, and the 
royal palm, where the possibihties for agricultural opera- 
tions seem limitless, though not half developed. 

Passing over the crest that divides the southern from 
the northern slopes, with their hundreds of streams flow- 
ing in different directions, we descend towards the ham- 
let of Cayey, which is 2300 feet above the sea, and only 
37 miles distant from San Juan. Here a road branches 
off to the coast, passing through Guayama to Arroyo. 
Cayey has a delightful climate, and is a favorite resort 
with those who wish to escape the heat of the coast. 

About the same distance from Cayey as the latter place 
is from Aybonito, lies the town of Caguas, at a lower 
elevation, and the junction-point of several mountain 
roads, including one from Humacao and the southeast 
coast. All along the line, connecting with the great high- 
way at intervals, are roads and bridle-trails, which lead 
away into fascijiating tcrrcc incognita, to secluded valleys 
and isolated mountain peaks, which one is constantly 
tempted to explore. Horses and guides are not difficult 
to obtain, and if one should desire to break away from 
the paths of civilization and devote a few weeks to that 
unknown interior country, the adventure would be well 
rewarded. 













"^ 






XVI 
THE DANISH ISLANDS AND VIRGINS 

How Uncle Sam dashed the hopes of the Danes — Charlotte 
Amalia's peerless port — Some ports of Puerto Rico — 
Culebra as a coaling station — Santa Cruz and its scenery — 
When the " Monongahela " went ashore — Saint John and its 
haven, Coral Bay — An island of spices and fragrant forests 
— The attractiveness of Saint Thomas — Its capital and chief 
port, Charlotte Amalia — How Saint Thomas has changed, 
for the better and worse — Its harbor compared with that of 
San Juan — ^Best in the West Indies as a coaling and refitting 
station for war-ships — The attempt made by President Lin- 
coln and Secretary Seward to secure it — Denmark's price 
and America's offer — An affair that dragged through three 
administrations — When the King of Denmark said farewell 
to his West-Indian subjects; and then took them back — 
What the latter think of Americans — Visits to Tortola, 
Virgin Gorda, and Anegada. 

WHEN Uncle Sam appropriated Puerto Rico, 
as his reward for services rendered to Spain 
in divesting her of Cuba, he dashed the 
hopes of three islands in the Virgin group, lying fifty 
or sixty miles to the eastward. These islands are Saint 
Thomas, Saint John, and Santa Cruz, the inhabitants 
of which had been casting sheep's eyes at the United 
States for several years, hoping we would go down 
and possess them. Severally and collectively, they can 
boast many and varied charms ; but the chief inducement 
they had to offer was the peerless harbor of Charlotte 

255 



256 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Amalia, in Saint Thomas. At first the Danes asked fif- 
teen milHons for it, then ten, then dropped to seven, with 
the three islands " thrown in " ; but when the harbor of 
San Juan fell to us, as part and parcel of the Puerto Rican 
conquest, it was no longer needed. For we then 
had not only San Juan, but the entire island of Puerto 
Rico, ten times as large as Saint Thomas, and vastly more 
fertile, with a population of 900,000, the traditional "thou- 
sand hills " — with cattle on them, too— sugar and coffee 
lands, rivers and harbors. 

Intrinsically considered, the Danish West Indies are of 
small account to the rest of the world, but through their 
geographical position they are of inestimable value to a 
portion of it. Strategically, they hold the key to the 
West Indian and South American situation in case of 
war; they control, or may be made so as to control, the 
ocean pathway from our Atlantic ports to the projected 
Isthmian Canal, which in the future will be an appre- 
ciable factor in forming an estimate of values. They are 
situated within the tropics, and consequently beyond the 
ken of the average American citizen, who generally has 
contempt for things not within the range of his vision. 
Tropical they are, in situation and production; yet they 
are not physically volcanic, and have produced nothing 
worse than tidal waves and hurricanes. 

The largest member of the Danish West Indian group 
is Santa Cruz, or.Sainte Croix, depending upon whether 
the original Spanish name bestowed by Columbus is 
chosen, or the more recent French. Largest of the trio, 
being 19 miles in length by 5 in breadth, Santa Cruz is 
also the most fertile, yielding vast crops of sugar cane 
and some coffee; level in the main, with only one eleva- 
tion over 1000 feet; containing a population of about 



DANISH ISLANDS AND VIRGINS 257 

25,000 people, more than half of whom are to be found 
in the two towns of Christian and Frederichstaed. 

Santa Cruz has a reputation (achieved by a single 
swoop of a hurricane and tidal-wave combined) which 
it may never outlive. It was acquired in 1867, when the 
old " Monongahela," United States war-ship of that 
period, broad of waist and rotund as to bows, was sent 
high and dry ashore by the forces aforementioned, and 
landed in a roadway quite a distance from the sea at its 
normal level. Not a small amount of money was neces- 
sary to" return the old tub to her aqueous habitat; but the 
feat was accomplished, and she sailed away, to return 
again after many years and receive a royal welcome. 

The island has proved so attractive to several Amer- 
icans that they have forsworn allegiance to their flag 
and settled down here in the midst of bucolic delights. 
There are many things to allure, many to conjoin in fix- 
mg a foreigner to the soil, particularly if one be in search 
of the dolce far niente — for this is its home, they say. 

The smallest of these tropical Danes is Saint John, 
which is only eight miles by four in area, or just about 
one-half the size of Santa Cruz. It is more rugged, 
however, is watered by numerous small streams, and its 
hills are covered with second-growth forests of woods 
like the bay and cinnamon, wild coffee, and mahogany, 
the infrequent plantations devoted to sugar cane being 
sandwiched in between. Its total population will not 
exceed 2000, all the people, with very few exceptions, 
being poor, and nearly all black, or colored, as to 
complexion. 

Saint John, with its fragrant forests and numerous 
beaches of snowy sand, would be beyond all price were it 
more accessible ; but at present it languishes in an obscur- 



258 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ity which has been unbroken for centuries. Only in the 
good old buccaneer times was Saint John well known, 
for it possessed, as it now possesses, a pearl of price in 
its landlocked haven known as Coral Bay. It is doubtful 
if the waters of this secluded haven were ever cleft by 
keel of craft larger than the droghers that sometimes flit 
along these islands coastwise, but within its confining 
hills, it is said, a small navy might find shelter. 

It is reckoned as hurricane proof — that is, a safe 
anchorage during the season between July and Novem- 
ber, when the tropic cyclones rage. It is a triple harbor, 
sheltered by a lofty promontory, with good anchorages 
in nearly every part, and with a depth of thirteen fathoms. 
These facts are mentioned because it is for the harbors 
they contain, and not for what their soil may be made to 
bring forth, or their people contribute, that these islands 
are esteemed as of. prospective value to the United States. 

There is still another island in this trio which owns 
a harbor far outclassing any other in that portion of the 
world. While both Santa Cruz and Saint John possess 
many natural attractions, their companion isle. Saint 
Thomas, has received far more attention than either. 
Saint Thomas is only thirteen miles in length by three 
or four in breadth, and has neither the fertility of Santa 
Cruz nor the beauty of Saint John, its soil having long 
since been washed from the hills by torrential rains and 
its forests having 'been converted into charcoal, centuries 
agane. But it has color and contour, and directly beneath 
its central ridge, about 1500 feet in height, lies the famous 
town of Charlotte Anialia, in a hollow of the hills, the 
buttresses of which run out into the sea and half inclose 
its peerless harbor. 

There is no more picturesque town in all the West 



DANISH ISLANDS AND VIRGINS 259 

Indies than Charlotte Amalia, and this is saying much 
when one has seen Havana and San Juan, Port an 
Prince, and Santo Domingo. Built upon and between 
three rounded hills, one of which is topped by a castle 
of buccaneer origin, with red-roofed houses standing in 
the midst of beautiful gardens reached by tortuous flights 
of steps, and with cocoa palms leaning over the beaches 
that border the bay, Charlotte Amalia is a shining 
example of what a West Indian town may become when 
it has the benefit of an unexampled location. It used to 
be scourged with cholera and yellow fever and it also 
used to be rich and running over with Mexican dollars; 
but now it is tolerably healthful and undeniably poverty- 
stricken; for a short cut through a coral reef created a 
current for the stagnant waters of its harbor, and the sub- 
stitution of steam for sails has carried ofif its commerce. 

It always was, and still is, a free port, and every article 
from foreign parts is cheap; but the bulk of Charlotte 
Amalia's population purchases little from foreign parts, 
owing to the fact that it has nothing to purchase with. 
The barrows laden with dollars that were once trundled 
through the streets have long since been trundled out of 
sight, and the chink of silver is rarel}^ heard by the aver- 
age citizen of the capital, which, as it includes nearly all 
the total of 13,000, may be said to represent the island. 

But, poor and despised as Saint Thomas has become, 
it still retains its hold upon that magnificent harbor into 
which the Danish Charlotte dips her dainty feet. Its 
average depth is more than six fathoms, its entrance is 
open and about half a mile across, while within it is a 
mile in breadth and with sufificient accommodation for at 
least one hundred sail. On its west side is the " careen- 
ing cove," where there is a large floating dock and a depth 



26o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

of more than twenty feet of water. On every side rises 
a hill, except to the southward, where lies Santa Cruz, 
forty miles away, and, according" to naval experts, the 
harbor might be made a veritable Gibraltar, with com- 
paratively little expense to whatever government owned 
it. At present there are diminutive forts perched on the 
hills that guard the harbor mouth, and down at the water- 
edge of the town stands a small red fort with rusty iron 
guns pointed in aimless manner at the heavens above. 

This is the harbor so highly commended by Admiral 
David D. Porter, many years ago, who told Charles 
Sumner that there was none other in the West Indies so 
well fitted for a naval station. As to its location, he said, 
it lies right in the track of all vessels from Europe, Brazil, 
the East Indies, and the Pacific Ocean bound to the West 
Indies or the United States. He called it " the keystone 
to the arch of the West Indies," as it commanded them 
all, and added that it would be of more importance to the 
United States than to any other nation. 

The harbor of San Juan looks northwardly, that of St. 
Thomas opens southwardly; the one is already defended 
by massive fortifications, but the other can be made far 
safer by one-tenth the expenditure made by the Spaniards 
at San Juan during three centuries. Captain G. V. Fox, 
of our Navy, once reported : " This harbor of St. Thomas 
is one of the best in the West Indies, admirable for naval 
purposes, and fully equal to all the requirements of the 
commerce of those seas. . . The eminent strategic, 
geographical, and commercial position which St. Thomas 
occupies arrests the attention of the most casual observer 
of the world's chart." 

This much as to the location of the harbor; now let us 
inquire into the movement made at one time toward its 



DANISH ISLANDS AND VIRGINS 261 

acquisition by the United States. There was one Power, 
during the dark days of the American Civil War, always 
consistently friendly, and that was little Denmark, whose 
ports were open to our war-ships on the same terms that 
others obtained. Notably free to our naval commanders 
was the port of Charlotte Amalia, and there was estab- 
lished a coal yard for the use of our ships. It was the 
one port to which we could have free access, and, what 
is more to the point — egress, when a Confederate cruiser 
or blockade runner, having availed itself of this port for 
coaling and refitting, was about to depart. 

When, therefore, a coaling station was thought of, and 
the subject broached to President Lincoln, in January, 
1865, it was with the Island of St. Thomas in mind that 
Secretary Seward " broke ground." He lost no time in 
sounding the views of the Danish minister at Washing- 
ton, and in inducing him to communicate with his govern- 
ment. He and Mr. Lincoln had agreed upon this partic- 
ular island of St. Thomas, for the reason that it was most 
commandingly situated as to the other West Indian 
islands ; also, it belonged to a nation friendly and, what is 
of importance, impecunious. It was shrewdly con- 
jectured, by our astute Secretary of State, that Denmark 
might wish to sell this outlying possession of hers, for 
reasons of her own; at all events, that she would entertain 
the proposition in a friendly spirit. It so happened that 
Denmark was in need of several millions of dollars to 
strengthen her defenses; at the same time she did not 
dare risk ofifending her sister powers by openly assenting 
to a sale of even so small a portion of her territories as 
that bit of earth and rock in the far Caribbean Sea. 

But her objections were finally overcome, although she 
was very coy at first, and insisted upon knowing just how 



262 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

much Uncle Sam was willing to pay for her West Indian 
Islands before proceeding further. Her minister was 
instructed to obtain a reply, when there intervened that 
terrible tragedy by which our nation lost its President, 
and Mr. Seward himself was prostrated by the hand of 
a would-be assassin. A natural delicacy prevented the 
subject from being reopened by the Danish minister, and 
it was not until January, 1866, that Mr. Seward, having 
meanwhile made a voyage to the West Indies for the 
restoration of his health, resumed negotiations. He had 
visited St. Thomas, and all his previous impressions as to 
its being a desirable acquisition for our government were 
confirmed. 

A basis of negotiation was finally secured, and our 
minister at Copenhagen was instructed to offer $5,000,- 
000 for the three islands — St. Thomas, Santa Cruz, and 
St. John. This offer was declined, but Denmark made a 
counter proposition, offering to cede the three islands for 
$15,000,000, or St. Thomas and St. John for $10,000,000, 
with an option of Santa Cruz for $5,000,000 more. A 
compromise was finally effected at $7,500,000 for the two 
first named — St. Thomas and St. John. It was in July, 
1867, that Mr. Seward cabled to Copenhagen: "Close 
with Denmark's offer ! St. John, St. Thomas, seven and a 
half millions. Send treaty ratified immediately." 

But the Danes are a leisurely people, and it was not 
until October that the treaty was signed and concluded. 
Meanwhile there was a question as to the wishes of the 
inhabitants of the islands with reference to a transfer of 
allegiance, and an agent was sent by each nation for the 
purpose of taking a plebiscite. They arrived in St. 
Thomas about the middle of November, 1867 ; a few days 
later occurred a terrible earthquake and a tidal-wave, 




o 



--C; 



<3 



DANISH ISLANDS AND VIRGINS 263 

which have become matters of historical importance, inas- 
much as the tide of sentiment in the United States was 
doubtless turned against the treaty. It is not known that 
the island ever experienced a similar visitation of such 
terrible character ; it certainly has never had one since. 
But this was sufficient to set in motion all the antagonistic 
elements of earth and sea, as if the very stars and planets 
fought against the project. 

Notwithstanding the predictions of the superstitious 
people of the island, however, a vote was taken, which 
was nearly unanimous, for transfer to the United States. 
Considering the preliminary convention as binding 
equally upon both parties to the agreement, the King of 
Denmark had sent out, by his commissioner, a royal 
proclamation, announcing the severance of their relations, 
beginning : 

" We, Christian the Ninth, by the grace of God King of Den- 
mark [etc., etc.], send to our beloved and faithful subjects of 
St. Thomas and St. John our royal greeting. We have resolved 
to cede our islands of St. Thomas and St. John to the United 
States of America, and have to that end, with the reservation of 
the constitutional consent of our rigsdad, concluded a convention 
with the President of the United States." 

Concluding : . 

" With sincere sorrow do we look forward to the severment of 
those ties which for many years have united you and the mother 
country, and, never forgetting the many demonstrations of loyalty 
and affection we have received from you, we trust that nothing 
has been neglected upon our side to secure the future welfare 
of our beloved and faithful subjects, and that a mighty impulse, 
both moral and material, will be given to the happy development 
oi the islands under the new sovereignty. Commending you to 
God. 



264 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

" Given at our palace of Amalienborg, the 25th of October, 

1867, under our royal hand and seal. 

"CHRISTIAN, R." 

The popular vote was taken on the 9th of January, 

1868, which was made a universal holiday, and the Amer- 
ican flag substituted for the Danish on every point of 
prominence, tower, and hilltop. 

The treaty was submitted to the Danish rigsdad, and 
promptly ratified, the king affixing his signature the same 
day. June 30, 1868. 

The position of Denmark, acting in good faith, and 
presupposing that the United States would do the same, 
now seemed irrevocable. She had offended several of 
her mightier neighbors, Germany, France, England, who 
looked upon this acquisition by the United States as 
prejttdicial to their interests. 

Over the subsequent proceedings we must draw the 
veil of charity, to avoid the use of harsher epithet ; for 
the conclusion of this chapter is by no means creditable 
to the United States. Four months were allowed for the 
ratification of the treaty by our Senate, then extended to 
a year; again extended to the 14th of April, 1870, when 
the committee of foreign relations recommended suspen- 
sion of action, and indorsed it adversely. 

The affair had dragged through three administrations, 
and had been the sport of different sessions of Congress, 
only to be ignomijaiously smothered in committee and 
pigeonholed, with Denmark's royal signature affixed and 
the ratification of her Senate. Thus the treaty intention 
was ignored ; thus the King of Denmark had the humilia- 
tion of recalling his disappointed but still loyal subjects ; 
and the flag of Dannebrog yet waves over the islands of 
St. Thomas and St. John. 



DANISH ISLANDS AND VIRGINS 265 

Associated as it has been with pirates, buccaneers, 
smugglers, men-of-war, and men-of-peace, the harbor of 
Saint Thomas has seen some strange, eventful happen- 
ings. Having sailed into and out of it several times, it 
may be impossible for me now to portray it as it should 
be, the novelty having worn off ; but in another book of 
mine (which few, if any, ever read) is an account of my 
first impression, which I fain would quote. 

It may be night when the steamer arrives at the harbor 
of St. Thomas, but the land-breeze brings off the fra- 
grance of a thousand flowers, the strange, pungent odors 
of the terrene tropics, and you know that a new land is 
reached at last. New scenes await you, if it be your first 
trip to the tropics, and they cannot but interest and de- 
light. 

Arriving at the harbor at night, one might well 
imagine he had by mistake been brought to the borders of 
the infernal region, for flaring flambeaux illumine the 
dark waters, dusky forms glide about with discordant 
cries, yells, and whistlings. A weird procession of black 
and hideous hags, clad in ragged raiment, bearing on 
their heads great baskets, and shuffling clumsily up and 
down the gang-planks, has established connection with 
the shore and is supplying the steamer with coak It is 
merely an episode in the life of the voyager ; but it is a 
matter of vast importance to those wretched negresses, 
who get but a penny a basket for their toil, and who are 
always ready, by night and by day, to respond to the 
blast from the great horn blown by the contractor from 
the parapet of Bluebeard's Castle, on the hill across the 
harbor. 

Making Charlotte Amalia headquarters, many a pleas- 
ant trip can be taken to the isles and islets in adjacent 



266 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

waters, being sure not to omit beautiful Saint John, nor 
quaint and almost deserted Tortola, the Isle of the Dove ; 
nor Virgin Gorda, the " Fat Virgin," which has a moun- 
tain 1300 feet in height well charged. with gold and cop- 
per. The extreme tip of the Caribbean chain crops out 
at Anegada, the " Submerged Island," which lies just 
north of Virgin Gorda, and of old, like all the other Vir- 
gins, was the resort of buccaneers, having many secluded 
coves and hidden harbors into which they ran their ves- 
sels while the enemy was nigh. This island is, or was, 
famous for its great Flamingo Pond, the resort of the 
big birds in pink and crimson livery, which come up from 
the Orinoco regions at certain seasons of the year and 
enliven the landscape with color. 

Great veins of silver and copper have been traced at 
Gallows Bay, and sometimes old coins and jewelry are 
found in the island, worth far more than their weight in 
gold, and probably left there by the pirates who used to 
rendezvous around the bay named after Sir Francis 
Drake. 



XVII 

THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 

Some islands decidedly Dutch — The northernmost isles of the 
Caribbees — Where to find the West-Indian volcanoes — Saba, 
an island unique — The town of Bottom in its crater-bowl — 
Bonaparte's Cocked Hat — The author's adventures in Saba 
— Left at the Ladder with strangers — The climb to the town 
in -the crater — Homes of the sturdy Dutch sailors — Gardens 
two thousand feet above the sea — ■ Saba's mountain peak and 
the view from it — Northern limit of the garnet-throat hum- 
ming-bird : — Sulphur as good as that from Sicily — Where 
the beasts of burden are human beings — In a land of yes- 
terday — 'Statia, the island sacked by Lord Rodney — Loot 
that amounted to $15,000,000 — A place that few> travelers 
visit — Spending a night on a crater-brim — A hegira of the 
Hebrews — The author's passport in Dutch — The first salute 
paid to our flag by foreign people — Thirteen an unlucky 
number for 'Statia — A pendant for Miss Columbia's neck- 
lace — Curagao, on the Venezuelan coast — Dutch islands and 
their area — A little Dutch Paradise — Papiamento, the 
pepper-pot language — The harbor-lagoon of Curagao — How 
the island may be reached — A near neighbor of the Lake 
Dwellers. 

SOUTHEAST of the Saints and the Virgins,which 
themselves lie to the eastward of Puerto Rico, 
stretches the chain of volcanic islands known as 
the Lesser Antilles. They are included within latitude 
10 and 18 degrees north, and are arbitrarily divided into 
the Leeward and the Windward groups, the former lying 
to the north, and the latter to the south of north latitiude 
15 degrees. 

267 



268 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

The new moon in her earhest stages describes no more 
nearly perfect crescent than this " string of emeralds on a 
silver zone," which those prone to alliteration term " the 
crescentic chain of the Caribbees." Every island in this 
chain, beginning with diminutive Saba in the north, and 
ending with Grenada in the south, is volcanic in char- 
acter, and the chord of the arc they collectively describe 
is about three hundred and sixty miles in length. Each 
island is practically a single mountain shot up from the 
ocean depths, the altitudes varying from 2000 to 5000 
feet, and so evidently volcanic of origin that one may not 
err in ascribing it to old Vulcan, or whoever has been 
allotted to perform his work in the nether world. 

Pinnacles, mountain-tops, spires, thrust up through the 
sea, suggest also (as remarked in Chapter I) the remains 
of a lost continent — or perhaps the beginnings of a newer 
one — and around them we may well weave myths, not 
only Antillean, but Atlantean. They are all volcanoes, in 
fact, and were thought to be extinct, until May, 1902, 
when occurred the terrible eruptions in Saint Vincent and 
Martinique, by which thousands of homes were destroyed 
and between fifty and sixty thousand people lost their 
lives. 

At all events the silence has been disturbed, and most 
effectually. Atlantis may yet appear out of the debris 
of wrecked isles a resurrected continent, above the sea, 
and verify the Platonian legend. 

But, should these islands be destroyed, and, in efifect, 
disappear, one cannot conceive of their places being taken 
by any more beautiful. Doubtless God might have made 
better, and more beautiful isles — to paraphrase old Wal- 
ton's remark anent a certain fruit — but doubtless God 
never did ; or if He did, the writer never saw them. As 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 269 

every mountain shoots upward abruptly to an altitude 
that gives it practically the range of two climatic zones, 
temperate and tropical, every beautiful aspect of vegeta- 
tion may be noted here. The sides of each partially sub- 
merged volcano, from base to peak, and even some of the 
crater-walls, are hung with richest tapestries in varying 
shades of green. ^^ 

The northerrjKfost of the volcanic islands — or to be 
exact, the northwesternmost — is Saba, a mountain rising 
above the ocean floor nobody knows how many thousand 
feet, but with about 2800 of them sticking up above the 
water. What nature intended it should become when 
finished is not evident, for it seems only just begun; but 
it is a Dutch possession now, has been for many years, 
and is Holland's smallest property in the West Indies, 
perhaps in the world. 

What is rare in these islands, the majority of the popu- 
lation are white ; and not only white, but Dutch, the good 
old-fashioned kind, with blue eyes, freckled sandy com- 
plexion, and flaxen hair. There are Dutch residents in 
San Martin, Saint Eustatius, and in Aruba, Bonaire, and 
Curacao, off the Venezuelan coast ; but they are not the 
sturdy, clear-complexioned Dutch of Saba Island. The 
secret of their sturdiness and their healthfulness is found 
in the altitude, at which they live; not one of them less 
than 800 or 900 feet above the sea. 

In fact, when Nature made Saba, she forgot to indent 
the coast-line with a harbor, hardly a landing-place ; 
least of all a spot big enough to build a house on, so all 
the Sabans live at an elevation above the sea, perforce, of 
near a thousand feet. Nine hundred and sixty feet, to 
be exact, is the height of the town of Bottom above the 
sea. That is where most of the Saba people live (those 



270 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

that do not dwell there being still higher up, among the 
crags of the volcano). The town of Bottom is so called 
because it lies at the bottom of an extinct crater. At 
least, it is supposed to be extinct, and will probably be 
considered so, until some day the victims of a mistaken 
confidence in the quiescence of a volcano may find — if 
any survive — that the real bottom of the crater was con- 
siderably below the level of their settlement! Their 
dwelling here in fancied security illustrates the apathy 
that possesses all those who take up their residences in 
precarious places merely because they have advantages 
over others less exposed to danger. They know well 
enough that the volcano towering above their quaint little 
town once went on a rampage, and peppered the whole 
island and surrounding sea until the soil of the former 
was nearly hidden from sight, and the latter made to boil 
like a witch's caldron. The Saba people ought to know 
what volcanic rock and scoriae are, of a surety, for they 
have had to painfully clear their lands , of both, before 
planting the neat little gardens that surround their houses. 

Saba, in olden times, was known to the sailors as 
" Bonaparte's Cocked Hat," and certes, there is no 
quainter country in the world than this same speck of an 
island in the Caribbean Sea, which forms one of the links 
in the chain connecting North and South America. 
Sweep the map with a glance, and you would be likely 
to overlook it entirely, so snugly is it sandwiched in 
between the others ; but it has its own attractions, never- 
theless. 

A friend of mine, a geographer and man of learning, 
once congratulated me as the only man he had ever met 
who had visited Saba, and declared that the first thing 
he should do when he had leisure would be to follow in 




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THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 271 

my footsteps. Be that as it may, I can recall that no land 
I ever set foot on caused me to thrill with such satisfac- 
tion and pleasure as when at last I found earth beneath 
me in Saba's only settlement. Not so much on account 
of the quality of the earth, as from the fact that it was 
earth, and not bounding billows or tumultuous seas. For 
I had been two days tossing up and ' down in a small 
drogher plying between St. Thomas and St. Kitts, and 
was sick nigh unto death, when we sighted Saba's peak 
piercing the gloom of a tropic twilight. 

The "trade wind blew fiercely through the mountain 
gorges, and beat us off from the island again and again ; 
but at last we got in near enough to launch a boat, into 
which I was tumbled, together with my belongings. Two 
stalwart black men pulled it within hail of the shore, 
and then, instead of landing, they split the darkness 
with shouts for help, yelling to some invisible person 
in the clouds to " come down." It was nearly an 
hour before a response was wafted out to the boat, and 
quite another ere someone shouted a welcome from the 
base of the frowning cliffs. He, she, or it, whoever or 
whatever, might have been a disembodied spirit, for all 
we knew, for nothing could be seen but the foaming 
breakers on the shore and huge bowlders, dim and indis- 
tinct ; but in we went, in obedience to the siren's call. 

The boat shot ahead with terrific speed straight for 
the rocks, and just as the shock of the impact with those 
rocks sent me tumbling heels over head, a strong arm 
seized me, yanked me out unceremoniously, and set me 
upright at the base of the cliff. The process had been 
materially assisted b}^ a thumping wave, which had 
whelmed the boat and smacked me in the back, at the 
same time setting my luggage all afloat. Other strong 



272 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

arms pulled the boat upon the rocks, emptied her of my 
effects and sent her back again on the breast of a wave, 
before I had wiped the salt water from my eyes. So 
there I was, alone with several strange folk, number un- 
determined until a lantern was lighted, when it was re- 
duced from a multitude to two. 

They were black, both of them, and evidently friendly, 
for after piling my luggage at the foot of the precipice 
they took me by the arms and guided me to what they 
called the " Ladder," which was a narrow trail up the side 
of said precipice. It was fortunate for my shattered 
nerves that the darkness hid the dangers of that trail 
from sight, for when I afterward saw it by daylight no 
money would have tempted me to essay it. But up we 
went, my guides climbing like goats and never making 
a misstep, until at last we reached a path which was not 
quite so steep as the side of a house, and I sat down to 
breathe. 

My sable friends assured me that the dangers were 
passed, and they told me that of the two landings which 
the island possessed this was the worse. When the wind 
was west they used the eastward landing, called the Fort, 
and when it was east they used, the Ladder ; but whichever 
was used, and whatever the weather or wind, the sea was 
nearly always rough. 

Here, however, the sturdy Dutch sailors of Saba, many 
of whom are descended from men who had sailed with 
Van Home and Von Trompe, when these seas were 
infested with pirates and buccaneers, had resided all their 
lives. It was lucky for Saba that most of them met their 
ends at sea, for really there is not soil enough there to 
bury them in. Still, no other place in the world had the 
attractions for them held by this small islet, and if per- 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 273 

chance any removed to other parts they always came 
back, being homesick for their beloved mountain and its 
crater. 

Faint from hunger and tottering with weakness, I was 
piloted to the harbormaster's house ; for, though Saba had 
no harbor, yet it had an official who drew pay as captain 
of the port, and by him, after I had satisfied his curiosity 
as to my business, my birth, and my respectability, I was 
permitted to sleep on his floor. Strangers seldom landed 
in Saba, and the last one, a dozen years before, had come 
by daylight and with proper credentials. I satisfied him 
in the morning as to credentials, and after being taken to 
the governmental chief, who gave me a passport for two 
guilders permitting me to reside in the island without 
molestation, I was introduced to the widow of a departed 
mariner, who agreed to board and lodge me. 

Her little house was neat and painted white, with a 
garden surrounding it filled with crotons, limes, and 
orange trees, and in front a paved walk with comfortable 
benches, from which was a general view of the settlement. 
This is the town of Bottom, and which I thought might 
better have been named the Summit, being so hard to 
reach. Though surrounded on all sides by steep hills, 
with breaks in the brim only at the east and the west, 
through which the landing-places are reached, yet the 
bottom of the ancient crater is quite broad and compara- 
tively level. That the volcano once vomited out many 
million tons of rock and scattered them all about is only 
too evident, for the people here have had to pick up the 
rocks and stones and pile them in heaps before they could 
get any garden spaces. Each little garden is inclosed 
within walls so high that the one street and the bypaths 
wind between artificial cliffs. 



274 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Saba, as the most northern of the true volcanic islands, 
is the home of some birds not to be found anywhere 
nearer the temperate zone than here. It was the north- 
ernmost habitat, as I ascertained, of the beautiful hum- 
ming-bird known as the garnet throat, which is one of the 
largest found in the West Indies, and has plumage like 
velvet, shot with iridescent and metallic hues of wine or 
garnet. 

As the ascent is made above the ravine the tree ferns 
and mountain palms become very numerous, the wild 
plantains, with golden and crimson cups, hang athwart 
the path hewn by the cutlass, and a wilderness of orchide- 
ous plants covers the trees. There is no trail above the 
" provision grounds " for the natives of Saba, though the 
men make voyages round the world, and are constantly 
at sea, have no love for mountain climbing. As for 
the women, if they get from one door to another, and once 
a year or so make the trip of forty miles to St. Kitts, 
they think they have done wonders. 

But the view from the peak is worth voyaging far and 
climbing high to see, embracing, as it does, a wide sea- 
scape dotted with the islands of St. Barts, St. Martins, 
and Anguilla to the east ; St. Thomas, Santa Cruz, St. 
John, and the Virgin group to the north ; St. Eustatius, 
St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat to the south — all historic 
islands, and every one a gem. 

Being a volcano, though quiescent, Saba yields, of 
course, the natural concomitant of lava and scoriae — sul- 
phur, and in a very pure state. It was claimed for the 
vast deposit, which was then being exploited toward the 
heart of the volcano, that it was the only mine of pure, 
cool sulphur in this hemisphere — -the only one outside of 
Sicily, in fact. I have seen the sulphur of Popocatapetl, 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 275 

Mexico, in situ, and it was to gratify my desire to see that 
of Saba that, one very hot day, I descended the eastern 
chfifs, nine hundred feet below the heights. There I 
found the black miners working heartily, in a tempera- 
ture too hot to mention in polite society, at a level about 
two hundred feet above the sea. The great cliffs were 
seamed with veins apparently inexhaustible, and owing 
to the purity of the crude sulphur, it is blasted from their 
faces and shot down a wire tram to the holds of vessels 
anchored near the shore. Only in good weather is this 
possible, and even in the smoothest sea there is some 
danger, for the " trades " blow straight against the cliffs, 
and there is no shelter nearer than the west shore of 
'Statia, fifteen or twenty miles away. 

I once found myself in a land of yesterday, stranded 
on an island which the mutations of trade had left on the 
verge of the world, so far as modern progress was con- 
cerned. It is an island of the Caribbees, belonging to the 
Dutch, and lies about midway between Saba and Saint 
Kitts. When Christopher Columbus sailed this way, in 
1493, he named it Saint Eustatius. 

One of the earliest accounts I have seen calls it a huge 
rock rising out of the waves, in the form of a pyramid, 
about fifteen miles in circumference. It consists, in fact, 
chiefly of an extinct volcano and the detritus washed 
down from its cliffs, together with the eruptive matter 
from the crater. There is no real peak to this isolated 
mountain, but a circular crater brim, 1950 feet above the 
sea, and the sweep of its pyramidal sides makes it one of 
the most symmetrical natural objects anywhere to be 
found in the world. 

Neither is there any harbor or good landing-place, and 



276 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the visitor has to take his chances of getting safely 
through the surf that beats continually upon its sandy 
shore. Yet, time was when this surf-pounded shore was 
strewn with the products of every clime, and merchandise 
of incalculable value lay unprotected on the strand. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century, during the 
general war in Europe, the Dutch, taking no part in 
belligerent operations, were the greatest gainers, as they 
supplied the other powers with naval and military stores. 
And at the beginning of the last quarter of that 
century, when that little dispute occurred between Great 
Britain and her American colonies, the Dutch again, by 
sending out all sorts of stores and munitions to their West 
Indian colony of St. Eustatius, were of very material 
assistance to both France and America. John Bull sus- 
pected something wrong was going on, but could not 
prove it until, by the capture of an American packet, his 
eyes were opened to the true inwardness of the situation. 
Then, with a promptness that fairly took the Dutchmen's 
breath away, he declared all treaties between his court and 
Holland abrogated and sent out a fleet to investigate. In 
the roadstead of Port Orange, 'Statia's apology for a har- 
bor, a large fleet of East Indiamen was congregated, 
laden with cargoes of immense value, and the beach was 
piled high with what former ships had landed there and 
for which there was no storage room. 

A declaration 6f war against Holland and a powerful 
fleet under Lord Rodney had been sent out simultane- 
ously, . so that when the British admiral hove in sight, 
having on board his ships a large land force under Gen- 
eral Vaughan, poor 'Statia was thrown into consternation. 

The island was under the rule of brave old Governor 
DeGraaff, a cfeole of Dutch parentage, whose sympathies 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 277 

were decidedly with the struggHng American colonies, 
but whose forts and military force were inadequate to 
combat this immense aggregation and armament under 
Rodney. So he surrendered, of course, and the island, 
with its vast riches, all conveniently stored in the ships 
and piled up on shore, fell into British hands. 

With an instinctive attraction toward the place that 
would afford the greatest loot, the British had pounced 
upon this island, and the plunder far exceeded their most 
sanguine expectations. It was estimated at more than 
$15,060,000; but while Rodney and Vaughan were quar- 
reling over its distribution they let slip the golden oppor- 
tunity for crushing the rebellious Americans, and in the 
end the capture of 'Statia cost John Bull rather more 
than it was worth. In other words, if Rodney had sailed 
to the relief of Lord Cornwallis, then penned up at York- 
town, instead of tarrying at this little island, he might 
have changed the history of our Revolution. He tried to 
make amends afterward by the destruction of the French 
fleet under De Grasse ; but that was more in the nature 
of revenge than a compensation for the loss of the 
colonies. 

And again, it happened that as the riches thus acquired 
on this occasion were in transit to England, the ships con- 
taining them were intercepted by the French and twenty- 
one of them taken. The French, also, later captured the 
island and held it for some time ; so after all the British 
made little out of their breach of faith with the Dutch. 

As I went to 'Statia seeking rare birds, it was part of 
my province to explore the woods and mountain districts, 
so I passed one night on the crater brim, with an old black 
man as guide and companion, in order to acquaint myself 
with the phenomena of nature there. We slept on the 



?78 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ground, and I had a blanket, but my sable friend had 
nothing between him and Mother Earth ; yet in the morn- 
ing he was awake with the dawn, and led me into the 
depths of the crater. It is like a huge bowl, the sides 
precipitous, but fringed with trees and vines, and at the 
bottom are immense ceibas and gommiers, with trunks 
two feet in diameter, showing that many centuries have 
elapsed since the last eruption there. 

Once was the time when the island was like a vast 
garden, when fields of waving sugar cane covered the 
plains, tobacco, indigo, and cotton the foothills, and coffee 
groves the mountain slopes, even to the crater brim. Then 
there Avere 20,000 people living here, 5000 white Hol- 
landers and 15,000 blacks; now there are but 1500, and 
the white man is a rara avis. The climate is healthy, but 
good water is scarce (I believe there is not a stream on 
the island), and frequent hurricanes have completed the 
ruin that Lord Rodney began. 




SIGNATURE OF GOVERNOR JOHANNES DE GRAAFF 

In the good old- times before emancipation an acre of 
soil was reckoned to produce from four to six hogsheads 
of sugar of 1500 pounds to the hogshead ; but to-day there 
is hardly that much raised on its seven square miles of 
territory. Most of the sugar land lies over on the wind- 
ward or eastern side of the island, for the leeward or 
western is almost too hilly for that sort of cultivation. 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 279 

There are several elevations of respectable height, as the 
White Wall, 900 feet ; North Hill, 960 ; Signal Hill, 750 ; 
Round Hill, 500 ; Old Fort, 300, and the town of Orange 
itself is well set up above the beach, the tower of its 
Dutch Church being 175 feet above sea level. The old 
church, like the mansions of those who built it, has fallen 
into ruin, but when I was there the quaint sounding- 
board still hung above the pulpit, and the pew was shown 
in which the representative of their High Mightinesses, 
Governor Johannes De Graaff, used to sit. 

The island is Dutch still, like Curasao, but the language 
of commerce and common use is English. That the 
official language is Dutch, the passport, or permit to 
shoot, without which I was not allowed to wander around 
with a gun, and which cost me two guilders, amply tes- 
tifies. It recites that De Gesaghebber van St. Eustatius 
hereby permits the bearer to carry abroad een dubbel- 
loop achterlaad scheitgeween during his stay, and the 
police force of the island (one man strong) is cautioned 
not to interfere with my explorations, " which are in the 
interests of science," etc. 

On the top of a hill was the caved-in magazine of the 
old fort, three hundred feet above the sleepy town, where 
a few rusty cannon of the last century poked their muz- 
zles out of a tangle of cactus and acacia. They were 
obsolete and dismounted, not worth taking away as old 
iron, even, or they would not have remained in the fort 
so long ; but what an interest attaches to those antiquated 
guns ! What an interest to an American, I mean ; for 
the salute fired from them on a certain day in 1776 was 
the ostensible grievance urged by England when she 
broke the treaty with Holland that precipitated Rodney, 
like a thunderbolt, upon this island. 



28o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

I must not forget to mention that what John Bull made 
the greatest fuss over was the firing of a salute in honor 
of the American flag by order of the Dutch governor of 
'Statia. And, moreover, it was probably the first recog- 
nition of the sort received by our flag in a foreign port. 

According to the annals of the time, a certain privateer 
from Baltimore, named the " Andrew Doria," came here 
for supplies in November, 1776, flying a flag that had 
never been seen in these seas before. It was not the flag 
officially adopted by Congress, of course, for that was 
made a year later ; but it probably resembled the naval 
flag of the Netherlands, with alternate red, white, and blue 
stripes. However, when the saucy privateer came sailing 
into Orange harbor, with its red, white, and blue flag flut- 
tering, and gave the fort a salute from its guns, sturdy 
Governor De Graaff ordered the salute returned, and the 
old cannon on the hill, now so rusty and useless, spoke 
out loudly, thirteen times, in honor of the thirteen stripes 
and colonies. 

But thirteen was an unlucky number for the governor 
and the island, whatever it may have been for our 
colonies, for before their High Mightinesses could comply 
with the British demand for a disavowal, along came 
Rodney and his fleet and put poor 'Statia out of the reck- 
oning altogether. She was throttled, then and there, and 
our colonies obtained no further aid from her. Thus 
she suffered, in a sense, on our account, and that our 
freedom might be achieved. 

And, as I sat amid the ruins of the old fort, and looked 
down upon the sad little town at my feet, I could not but 
feel that something was still due the island, in the nature 
of amends for the loss of that fifteen millions and depart- 
ed prosperity. It would form a very pretty pendant to the 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 281 

necklace of insular emeralds that Uncle Sam will some 
day throw about the neck of Miss Columbia ! 

If the American eagle ever should conclude to extend 
its protection to the islands south of us known as the 
West Indies, probably among the first to scramble 'neath 
the shelter of its wing would be those at present owned 
by the Dutch. Not that the Hollanders do not bestow 
upon them the best sort of a paternal government ; but 
for the same reasons that the Danes are anxious to dis- 
pose' of their own West Indian possessions — economic 
considerations. It is almost pathetic to observe the tenac- 
ity with which these once-powerful governments still 
cling to their tropical holdings in America. But it is 
possibly for the same reason that the hunter held on to the 
tail of the wild cat — because nobody would help him 
let go ! 

The Dutch possessions of the West Indies are com- 
prised in the Islands of Curacao, Buen Ayre, and Aruba, 
off the South American coast; Saba, St. Eustatius, and 
part of St. Martin, in the northwest Caribbean Sea. Their 
aggregate area is only 403 square miles, their population 
50,000, and the annual deficit in their revenues is about 
60,000 guilders, which is made good by the mother 
country. 

The seat of government is at Curacao, where the chief 
magistrate resides, and each outlying island is under an 
officer appointed by the sovereign, entitled the gesagheb- 
ber. Curagao is the largest, 210 miles in area; Buen 
Ayre next, 95 ; Aruba, 69; the moiety of San Martin, 17; 
St. Eustatius, 7, and little Saba last with only 5 square 
miles to its credit, and about 1800 inhabitants. 

It is nearly thirty-six hours' steaming across the Carib- 



282 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

bean Sea from Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas, or Saba, to 
the island of Curagao, for it Hes ahnost within sight of 
the Venezuelan coast of South America. It is only forty 
miles distant from that coast, on a clear day the con- 
tinental mountains being discernible from the island. 

Discovered by Vespucci, in 1499, Curagao was held by 
the Spaniards until 1634, when the Dutch acquired it; but 
how, no man seems to know. They probably found it 
without an owner and simply annexed it, ever since hold- 
ing it by right of possession. Curagao's architecture 
shows that it has been a Dutch holding for many years^ 
for it is that of Holland, most assuredly ; and so are the 
thrift and cleanliness displayed in this " little Dutch Para- 
dise " ; which is hot enough, by the way, to be styled an 
Inferno. 

Somebody, I think it was Kingsley, called Saint 
Thomas a " little Dutch oven of a place," and the name 
will apply equally well to Curagao. It is dry and parched 
and in spots is barren ; but yet it has a charm all its own. 
As a violent contrast to Saba and Saint Eustatius, it is a 
perfect success ; but the inhabitants of the volcanic islands 
seem to manifest a preference for their own mountainous 
demesnes, notwithstanding the greater activity prevailing 
in Curagao, and the more abundant lucre. It is difficult 
to tear a mountaineer from his country, poor though it 
may be, and few of the Dutch islanders in the northern 
Caribbean ever come to Curagao " for keeps." Some of 
the governmental officials of the latter island are obliged 
to take the trip to Saba and 'Statia every few months, 
because of business ; but otherwise there is scant inter- 
change of visits. English is spoken in all the islands, 
though the official language is Dutch. In g,ddition, there 
is spoken in Curagao a barbarous mixture of Dutch, 



THREE LITTLE DUTCH ISLANDS 283 

Spanish, English, Indian, and African, known as Papia- 
mento, which is a perfect pepper-pot, or hodge-podge, of 
a language, and peculiar to the islanders themselves. 

In choosing Curacao for their seat in the southern 
West Indies, the Dutch pitched upon an island reproduc- 
ing the salient natural features of Holland more than 
any other in the Caribbean. There is none other with 
just such a landlocked harbor as that of the Curagao 
lagoon, the entrance to which is so narrow that it is 
spanned by a bridge of boats, which is drawn aside for 
stearhers to enter. Two old forts guard the passage- 
way, one on each side, where are mounted the most 
obsolete of cannon, and paraded the funniest of little 
Dutch soldiers, who hail each other across the inlet as 
they feel inclined. 

The inlet forms a capacious harbor half a mile long, 
but opens beyond into a great lagoon called the Schat- 
tegat, where the ships of a navy might float. This lagoon 
was anciently the retreat of the famous pirates of the 
Spanish Main, behind a high hill guarding which, capped 
by an old fort, they used to hide away their piratical 
craft. From the island's name is derived that of the sweet, 
insidious liqueur so grateful after dinner — curagao ; but 
only the orange peel with which it is flavored comes from 
here, none of it being manufactured in the island. 

Decidedly Dutch is Curagao, as anyone will say who 
has sailed into its harbor-lagoon between Forts Riff and 
Amsterdam, and looked upon the old houses ringing 
around that landlocked body of water — houses which 
might have been transported bodily from the Zuyder Zee, 
as doubtless the tiles that cover their roofs were, long ago. 
There is not much to see in Curagao ; but somehow, it 
gets a hold on one's affections, and I must confess to a 



284 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

liking for the island, barren as it is, and dreary as its 
landscape is at times, from lack of rain and more than a 
suflSciency of dust. It is reached by the " Red D " line 
of steamers, which perform the voyage thither from New 
York, with a stop at Puerto Rico, in about six days. 

As one is almost within touch of Venezuela, when 
at Curacao, it rarely happens that the traveler tarries long 
here, preferring to go on to Puerto Cabello, La Guayra, 
and Maracaibo on the coast of Venezuela. All are within 
a few hours' steaming, Maracaibo being the farthest and, 
perhaps, the best worth visiting, what with its historical 
scenes of buccaneer days, and its near neighbors, the 
famous Lake Dwellers, discovered by Vespucci, in 1499, 
and to-day living in huts over the water, exactly as he 
found their ancestors, four hundred years ago. 



XVIII 
SAINT KITTS, NEVIS, AND MONTSERRAT 

Saint Kitts and Mount Misery — Original home of the buccaneers 

— Nevis, Redondo, and Montserrat — Lofty mountains of the 
Antilles — Sea-surrounded volcanoes — Climbing Mount Mis- 
ery — How the hospitable planters supplied me for an expe- 
dition — Through the high forests of the volcano — What was 
in the hamper — ■ Water from the wild pines, nature's punch- 
bowls — Deferential darkies in attendance — On the peak 
and what was found there — Brimstone Hill, once the " Gib- 
raltar of Saint Kitts " — Sandy Point and Basse Terre — In 
the crater of Mount Misery — The humming-birds' bath — 
Mammals of the West Indies — How the African monkeys 
got to Saint Kitts — What old Pere Labat has to say about 
them — The skull in the soup — Sir Thos. Warner's epitaph 

— Relic of a regicide — " Bobby " Burns came near becoming 
a Kittefonian — The sunken city near Nevis — The barrister 
of Booby Island — Fig-tree Church, where Lord Nelson was 
married to the Widow Nisbet — The marriage register — 
More quaint epitaphs — An old-time sanatorium — Birth- 
place of Alexander Hamilton — Legends of the Amazons — 
Madanino, Island of Amazons — Identical with the present 
Montserrat — How Pat Mulvaney turned into a " naygur " — 
Home of the lime-juicers — Origin of lime culture — A fine 
old Quaker family — A new bird found by the author. 

WHERE every island is a perfect gem, a 
gigantic emerald, embraced by bluest of 
waves and caressed by silvery clouds, it is 
most difficult to select that which might be termed the 
the finest; but there is none more attractive from the 
sea than Saint Kitts, named by the modest Columbus 

285 



286 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

after himself, Saint Christopher. He discovered it, as 
indeed all these islands of the northern Caribbees, in the 
year 1493. 

The highest peak in the island, about 4000 feet, is 
Mount Misery, which conceals a fine crater in its bosom 
— a crater that has sent out nothing worse than steam and 
sulphur fumes within the memory of man. Brimstone 
Hill, a detached peak 750 feet in height, was once fortified 
by the British and called their " West Indian Gibraltar," 
a name now borne by Saint Lucia, to the south of Mar- 
tinique. Saint Kitts possesses the richest soil in the West 
Indies, hardly excepting Cuba; yet its planters are now 
in the doleful dumps because we will not take them under 
our protecting wing, and sturdy black men are going 
begging at twenty cents a day. 

The island was the original home of the buccaneers. 
Off its leeward coast a great naval battle was fought 
between English and French. Across a narrow channel 
rises the symmetrical peak of Nevis, like Mount Misery, 
forest-clad, and with a fertile, verdant belt around it. 

Next south of Nevis lies Montserrat, smaller yet, and 
between the two islands the great rock of Redondo, a pin- 
nacle shooting up out of the sea. Montserrat has a fine 
crater or " soufriere," and before it was devastated by a 
hurricane a few years ago, was covered with groves of 
limes. Nevis has np well-defined crater, but has numer- 
ous hot and mineral springs. 

There are lofty mountains in Cuba and Santo Domingo 
which have scarce been climbed ; in Jamaica, the Blue 
Mountains, above 7000 feet, and in our own Puerto Rico 
peaks of not much lesser altitude. Although the Island 
of Haiti-Santo Domingo was discovered in 1492, and the 
first American cities of European foundation were 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 287 

attempted on its shores, yet the mountainous interior con- 
tains summits never scaled, and valleys which have been 
invaded only by Indians and fugitive blacks. 

Mountains there are, scores of them, above 5000 feet in 
height, awaiting the coming of the intrepid explorer ; but 
the true volcanoes lie eastward of the Greater Antilles, 
in the chain of the Caribbees. These islands are known 
as the Lesser Antilles, and have been arbitrarily divided 
into the " Windward " and " Leeward " isles ; but as a 
group they have always retained the name they derived 
from the cannibal Caribs by whom they were occupied 
when discovered. 

Inclusive of the Virgin Islands, just east of Puerto 
Rico, between latitude 18 and 19 north and the Island of 
Trinidad, 10 degrees from the equator and off the Orinoco 
delta, these Caribbees describe a perfect crescent. The 
outer- isles are mainly coralline, low-lying and featureless, 
but sheltered within this great barrier chain lie the true 
Caribbees, an archipelago of sea-surrounded volcanoes, 
extending over six degrees of latitude and ranging from 
2000 to 6000 feet in height. 

I never knew until I had tried to gain its summit, why 
the great central mountain of Saint Kitts was called 
" Mount Misery." Then I understood ; for, although the 
hospitable planter with whom I was temporarily residing 
made most elaborate preparations for me, yet the discom- 
forts of the ascent were multitudinous. The same old 
negro who had guided me in search of monkeys, and 
who was the watchman of the estate, was detailed to 
accompany me up the volcano. He called me at four in 
the morning, but I was already awake, having been kept 
so nearly all the night through by the " bete rouge," or 
minute red bugs that infest the forests and cling to the 



288 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

limbs of intrusive stranrers. An hour later we were 
ofif, and, after riding about five miles, as far as the pony 
eould carry me, I dismounted, and the beast was turned 
loose in the mountain pasture, where he browsed about 
until our return in the afternoon. 

We were joined here by two men who claimed to be 
more familiar with the mountain trail than old Tucker — - 
black Jim Bass and " Yaller Charlie " — and the former 
marched ahead to " cutlass out " a. path, while the latter 
divided with my old man the transportation of the pro- 
visions. The commissariat, by the way, is the most 
important feature of a West Indian expedition, and no 
generous host like my dear friend Mercer would, allow a 
guest to set forth without ample stock of provand. Hav- 
ing seen to it that his cook had filled a huge hamper with 
cold fowl, cassava bread, crackers, etc., with an imposing 
array of bottles containing various licjuors, such as gin, 
native rum, and " beer " or Bass' ale, he even followed me 
out to the garden gate as we rode away and shouted: 
" Have you got a corkscrew? " I had a corkscrew, hav- 
ing been in the islands long enough to know the impor- 
tance of such an article, and he went back contented. 

It was three years since anybody had been over the 
trail to the mountain-top, and Jim Bass had hard v\^ork 
cutlassing out a path through the ferns and the razor 
grass, which latter is here known as " cutnannie," and 
inflicts terrible gashes upon unprotected limbs. It took 
an hour to rise clear of the wild pasture and reach a 
lateral knife-edge ridge of the mountain just wide enough 
for the trail. 

Soon after reaching it we passed through a natural 
opening in a giant fig tree, which- straddled the path, 
leaving a portal higher than our heads, hiing with vines 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 289 

and plastered with air plants, and which my guides called 
the " gate." Beyond the " gate " the various earthquakes 
with which the island has often been visited had shaken 
the earth away from the ridge until in spots only a nar- 
row blade was left, with deep ravines on either side, filled 
with dense vegetation of gommiers and mountain palms. 

The upper edge of the forest was reached an hour 
before noon, and, as they had had nothing to eat or drink 
since their mornihg coffee, six hours before, my men 
unanimously declared that we must halt and breakfast. 
" Mus' feed de ole man in ma belly," said Bass. 

" Ma belly tech ma back ; him mus' t'ink ma t'roat cut," 
added Tucker. 

" You t'ink yo' mos' dar," said Yaller Charlie to me, 
*' but lemme tell yo', we on'y begun de climb. Dem 
climbin' ferns yander de wus t'ings in de wuld fer get 
t'ro'. When I make de fus' track I hab on pair new 
briches, and when I come back dey mash to cuss." 

The peak was then in sight, it seemed to me, and I 
wished to push on and breakfast on the summit; but my 
men were obdurate. The huge basket, nearly three feet 
across, and which Yaller Charlie had carried on his head 
over places where I had to cling with both hands to ferns 
and trees, and so carefully balanced that not a glass was 
broken or a bottle disturbed, was let down to the ground 
and our breakfast spread out on wild banana leaves. 

Upon examining the hamper I found that while three 
kinds of liquor had been provided, there was not a sign of 
water. Neither was there any spring or stream within a 
mile or m.ore. But while I was debating with myself 
what I should do old Tucker took a cutlass, and, stepping 
to the nearest tree, severed from one its horizontal limbs 
a great wild pine which sat astride of it, and from the 



290 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

cavities within the leaves poured out more water than 
was actually needed for diluting the cane juice in the bot- 
tles. This water was clear, cool, and refreshing, and the 
wild pines, which are called " punch bowls " by the 
natives, are never without a supply. 

I told Tucker to take one of the bottles of rum and 
divide it among the trio. He needed no second invitation, 
and receiving the bottle from me deferentially, retired 
with it behind a clump of palms, where it was soon emp- 
tied, without recourse to water from the " punch bowls." 
Heartened by this al fresco lunch, and blessing my good 
planter for his providence, we soon set out for the peak 
again, this time stumbling and wallowing through masses 
of climbing ferns and slipping over dank fields of mosses 
many feet in depth. 

It was well we had refreshed ourselves at the forest- 
edge, for there would have been no opportunity there- 
after, and it was full three hours before the peak was 
reached. The last half hour was the worst climbing I 
ever did in my life, it seemed to me, for I had to hold 
on with both hands and dig my toes into the slippery 
mosses on nearly perpendicular rocks, while about us 
the fog was so dense that we could not see five feet ahead. 
Through it all, however, Jim Bass hewed out the old trail 
so truly that, though obliterated, he disclosed the old 
blazes every now and then, and Yaller Charlie followed 
jauntily in his wake, balancing the hamper on his head. 
He would not listen to me and leave it behind, saying 
that it was no trouble at all to tote it, and we might need 
a bite w^hen we reached the summit, as sure enough we 
did ; not only a bite, but a nip, to keep the filmy fog out of 
our throats. 

■'' By de holp of de Lawd we reach dat top," said Bass, 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 291 

fervently and encouragingly ; and reach it we finally did, 
casting ourselves down, quite exhausted, on the ridge 
above the crater. 

" When Mr. Norton reach heah," said Tucker, " he 
done bus' right into teahs, and den he pray, and sing 
* God Save de Queen.' " 

I could understand Mr. Norton's enthusiasm, though 
for the life of me I could not see what the queen had to 
do with it. Fancy Queen Victoria, or King Edward, 
either, as to that matter, waddling to the peak of Mount 
Misery ! Neither of them ever saw it ; though the 
Prince's sons, George, and his late lamented brother, once 
visited the islands as midshipmen, and had everywhere a 
royal reception. 

The dense fog sweeping in from the Atlantic hid from 
sight all the windward side of the island, from which we 
had ascended, but to the leeward lay the encircling forest 
just about the cone, beyond which were the sugar planta- 
tions, divided into squares of light green where the cane 
was growing, and brown where it had been cut or the 
ground had been freshly broken. No bit of paradise 
could appear more beautiful ; and as to its fertility, I 
knew that I was looking upon one of the richest tracts 
of cane land in the world, where the volcanic soil is so 
deep as to be inexhaustible. 

Beyond the inclosing plantations, with their brown and 
verdant checkers of cane and their tiny windmills with 
slow-waving arms, lay the all-encircling sea, blue as the 
clearest sky and flecked with vessels white and beautiful. 
I could see Saba and 'Statia, Antigua Nevis, Montserrat, 
and a score of lesser islets, lying like cloudbanks on the 
wave, when the fog lifted and revealed them, and each 
one was a vision of beauty. 



292 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

The driving mist that so rapidly scurried over the verge 
of the volcano was only now and then dispelled by the 
Sim, affording but transient glimpses of the gloomy chasm 
that lay beneath us. The walls on this side were too steep 
to descend, being almost perpendicular ; but I vowed that 
I would reach the crater, even if I took another trip as 
hard as this to accomplish it. A week later I was on the 
leeward coast of the island, and at six in the morning 
skirting the base of world-renowned Brimstone Hill, 
crowned by its fortress known as the " Gibraltar of St. 
Kitts." 

From the coast settlement of Sandy Point it is a hot 
seven miles to the borders of " Sir Gillis' Estate," in the 
pastures above which I left my horse and found a guide. 

Sandy Point, which lies at the north end of the island, 
ten miles from Basse Terre, obtains its water supply from 
springs in the hills at this place, and thence there is a 
trail through the dense forest, up steep ridges, finally 
turning the crest and descending the crater wall at an 
uncomfortable pitch, but accompanied all the way by 
clumps of tree ferns, wild plantains, and mountain palms. 
The descent is steeper than that into the " bowl " of 
'Statia, and, like that, it is lined with tropical vegetation, 
even large trees finding a home here, and. the distance 
from the brim is about 700 feet. 

In ordinary seasons there is a small lake here which 
varies in depth, s'ometimes drying up entirely, and its 
water, when there is any, is blackish-green. Above the 
crater bed rises Mount Misery, the highest peak of the 
surrounding wall, steep, precipitous, and on the opposite 
side is a large body of palms. Amateur geologists say 
that the adjacent Brimstone Hill looks as if it had been 
cast out of this crater at some far-distant epoch, and that 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 293 

if it could be turned upside down it would exactly 
fill it. 

Under the cliffs of the east side is the " Sulphur," a 
steaming pool, where the surrounding rocks are stained 
in various colors — red, yellow, brown — and the trees 
near by are blanched quite snow white, their leaves 
scorched and shriveled. Throughout the bed are numer- 
ous black fumaroles leading far into the bowels of the 
earth, from which sulphur fumes are belched, as in 
Dominica and Guadeloupe, while a stream of acidulous 
water" runs from the great " Sulphur " into the lake. 

At the spring in the forest, which I reached at mid- 
afternoon on the return journey, I found " Mannie, the 
Portugee," awaiting me with a basket full of solid and 
liquid nourishment, sent by the proprietor of the Wing- 
field estate, nearly nine miles distant. Ele had trudged 
all the way in the tropic sun, and the beer was warm ; but 
as I had eaten little and drunk nothing since morning, 
and the sulphur water in the crater was not exactly palat- 
able, I did not mind a little thing like that. The water 
of the crystal spring was delicious, and far preferable to 
any " bottled goods," while the cold chicken and guinea 
bird were as tender as the proverbial " Billy's mother " — 
who, I believe, was the widow of a sailor. 

While refreshing myself in this delightful spot I was 
entertained by the antics of a gilt-crested hummer, which 
not only flew under the sparkling drops as they fell from 
the rocks, but also alighted and clung to the saturated 
moss, allowing the water to run over his glistening back. 
This seemed to be, in fact, the chosen bathing place of 
the humming-birds, for while I was there more than a 
dozen came and dashed into the water. The black rock 
was clothed in soft mosses and ferns, the deep recess in 



294 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

which the water dripped was overhung with begonias 
having sea-shell tints, and above my head palms and 
trumpet trees interposed their leaves between me and 
the sun, 

Down by the sea, near the base of Brimstone Hill, the 
bottom of the bay is said to be unbearably hot, and the 
sea-water charged with sulphurous gases, so it would 
seem that the name is not inapplicable to this spot so 
famous in West Indian history. 

As I w^as inspecting the place a crowd collected, and 
one old darky explained to the rest that I had " come to 
take de dimensions ob Sandy Point side," meaning that 
I intended to write about it ; and he was not far wrong, 
after all. 

It is a curious fact that, while there is abundant cover 
for large game in the West Indies, few big animals are 
found in a ferous state. Almost all of the little found 
there has sprung from game animals imported many 
years ago. When the first Spaniards arrived at Cuba 
they discovered the natives in possession of a small 
quadruped called the " dumb dog," which not only was 
held in high esteem for the table, but was cherished as a 
pet. Its chief peculiarity was its inability to bark or 
make any sound above a grunt or moan. 

There are, strictly speaking, no large arboreal animals, 
if we may except the few species of squirrels, 'possums, 
and 'coons, and the most noteworthy hiatus in the insular 
fauna is the almost entire absence of monkeys throughout 
the West Indies. 

Until within less than a score of years the presence of 
monkeys in these two islands and their entire absence in 
other and larger, was a puzzle to the naturalists. It is 
believed that no skins, even, of these monkeys were to be 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 295 

found in the United States, until the writer succeeded in 
obtaining some, in the year 1880, and sending them to the 
Smithsonian Institution. Then it was ascertained that 
the St. Kitts species was the African green monkey, 
known to scientists at the Cercopitheciis callitricus, and 
comparatively common. But for some time after this 
announcement the naturalists cudgeled their brains to find 
out how this species came to be so plentiful in an island 
thousands of miles away from its accustomed habitat. 

This was a poser, until I enlightened them by giving 
them" the results of my investigations. In an old history 
of travels by Pere Labat, a Frenchman, who voyaged 
through the Antilles in the early part of the eighteenth 
century, reference is made to some African monkeys 
that escaped from captivity, and, having gained the for- 
ests, there propagated with great rapidity, until they had 
become a nuisance to the planters. 

Then the wise men breathed more freely, for the prob- 
lem was solved at last; the origin of an African monkey 
in American islands was determined. The difference 
between the monkeys of the old and the new world are 
many, the most noticeable being shown in the shape and, 
uses of their tails. For, whereas the old world species is 
stiff-tailed and has little use for that appendage which 
has been such a stumbling block to the promulgators of 
the evolution theory, the American species has a pre- 
hensile tail and thus has many advantages over its 
cousins across the water. 

Speaking of the uses to which the early planters of St. 
Kitts put the ravagers of their cane fields, the monkeys, 
who used to descend in troops and eat all before them, 
the old historian narrates how the planters aforesaid 
applied the old aphorism and made " like cure like." 



296 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

He says : " Being one day invited to dine with one of 
the planters, I was horrified, when the soup was brought 
to the table, to see what looked like an infant's skull 
bobbing about in the tureen. But I was assured that it 
was not that at all, but merely the skull of a monkey, 
which had been deprived of skin and eyes and carefully 
cleaned." 

He goes on to say that he finally overcame his repug- 
nance and ate with gusto of the savory dish before him, 
which could not have been surpassed. Indeed, he took 
care that it should form a feature of his repasts while in 
the island, for the worthy father was a great gourmand. 
The moral of which is, or should be : When monkey 
soup is brought before you, shut your eyes and ask no 
questions. 

One would hardly expect to find in two small islands 
like St. Kitts and Nevis, which together cover little more 
than one hundred square miles, names that have become 
familiar to all readers of American and English history. 
As St. Kitts was the mother of the English colonies in 
this part of the West Indies, and her immensely fertile 
soil was easy of cultivation, many sons of distinguished 
families came out here to seek their fortunes. 

The founder of the colony was a Sir Knight, as is 
shown by his quaint epitaph, which is still to be seen in 
an ancient cemetery in the center of the island : 

"An Epitaph upon the most honourable Noble and 
much Lamented Gent Sir Thos. Warner, Kt., Lieutenant 
General of Ye Caribbee Islands and Gov'r of ye Island 
of St. Christ, Who departed this Life the loth of March, 
1648." 

The colony was always loyal to the English crown, in 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 297 

consequence of so many " gentlemen " having been 
employed in its fomidation ; but one of the judges who 
signed the death-warrant of Charles I. somehow found 
refuge there. In the possession of a family of planters 
is a silver tankard, inscribed with the initials of this 
" regicide," " J. N. H." — his name was Hutchingson — 
and the date, 1662. 

Another family holds as a choice relic a letter from 
Robert Burns, written about a hundred years ago, in 
which the Scottish bard gravely considers the possibilities 
of bettering his condition by removing to St. Kitts. It is 
a credit to his sense and his loyalty that he should have 
remained in comparatively sterile Scotland, for there is 
no denying the fact that " Bobby " was inclined to a land 
that was generous and where good liquors were to be had. 

The literary remains of these islands are few and far 
between, and they shine rather with a reflected radiance 
than with an original luster of their own. This may par- 
ticularly be said of the Island of Nevis, separated from its 
mate by a sea channel less than three miles wide. The 
islands were at one time contiguous, it is thought, and a 
submarine passage exists from one to the other. This is 
founded upon the statement of the monkey hunters, who 
declared that they have chased troops of monkeys to a 
cavernous region on either side, where they disappeared 
as if swallowed up by the sea. It is a well-known fact 
that monkeys are never numerous on both islands at the 
same time, for, while they are ravaging the cacao groves 
and cane fields of one island those of the other are usually 
exempt. On the Nevis side of the channel, under the 
grassy slopes of Hurricane Hill, the water covers the site 
of Jamestown, the sunken city. It was submerged dur- 
ing a hurricane, like Port Royal in Jamaica, and for more 



298 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

than a century the waves have covered the roofs of its 
houses. In midchannel rises a huge rock inhabited only 
by sea birds and known as Booby Island. 

An arrogant young barrister being asked by a certain 
judge where he practiced, airily replied: " Oh, between 
St. Kitts and Nevis." " Ah," said the judge, " on Booby 
Island, I presume ! " 

Two events have happened in Nevis which will cause 
the island to be kept in remembrance for many years to 
come. Here was born the great American statesman, 
Alexander Hamilton ; and here Britain's peerless seadog, 
Lord Nelson, fell victim to a widow's wiles and was 
married. 

In the year 1782 Horatio Nelson, then but twenty-four 
years old, was appointed to the command of one of his 
majesty's ships and sent to New York. The commander- 
in-chief. Admiral Digby, congratulated him on this 
appointment to a station where large sums of prize money 
were to be obtained, when the young captain replied : 
" Yes, sir; but I prefer the West Indies as the station of 
honor." He was, though unwittingly, taken at his word, 
and sent to the West Indies, where he became acquainted 
with the best people of those hospitable islands. 

Two years later, having made several voyages, and 
acquired the confidence of his sovereign. Nelson was 
again appointed to the West Indies, as a commander of 
the twenty-eight-gun- frigate the " Boreas," sailing from 
Spithead the 19th of May, 1784. He carried with him 
the rear admiral of the fleet. Sir Richard Hughes, and 
his family, and, after their transfer, assumed charge of 
the squadron assembled at Nevis. This island was then 
a prosperous sugar-producing colony of Great Britain. 

It was during this West Indian vovage that he met and 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 299 

won the fair Widow Nisbet, relict of a resident physician 
who had practiced in Nevis. They were married, as the 
register of Figtree Church affh-ms, on the nth of March, 
1787. The marriage register is still in evidence, though 
the leaves of the old book are tattered and worn, and 
can be seen by visitors to the Island of Nevis. The entry 
is as follows : 

That is all. The unknown recorder of this affair could 
not peer into the future and perceive that he was then in 
the presence of one of England's greatest captains, for 
the young man had not then won his successive titles of 
Baron Nelson of the Nile, Duke of Bronte, etc. He was 
plain Horatio Nelson, Esq. ; but doubtless considered a 
good catch by a West Indian widow of little means. 

In the cemetery attached to the little Figtree Church 
are some very interesting epitaphs. One of the early 
ones is that of an English gentleman who died while on a 
visit to the island, as set forth : 

" Here lyeth ye body of Mr. Arthur Ploner, of ye city of Bristol, 
who departed this life ye 15th of May, 1702, aged 38 years. 
" Tho' in ye grave ye widowed Carcasse lyes, 
His Soul is living still ; yt never Dyes. 



300 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

This too shall one day mount upon ye Wing, 
As from dead Winter does ye vig'rous Spring; 
So both, we hope, will meet at last in Joy, 
And live in Pleasures Yt have no alloy." 

The next is in the nature of an advertisement, as 
follows : 

" Here lies the body of John Huggins, Esq., who died 6th Dec, 
1824, aged 58. Not many years before his death he became pro- 
prietor of the neighboring hot springs, over which, out of good 
will towards his fellow creatures, and not for any advantage of 
his own, he erected convenient baths, and at a short distance a 
large and expensive stone edifice, for the accommodation of in- 
valids. This stone was put up by his widow." 

The sanitarium so ostentatiously alluded to in the 
epitaph is in existence yet, but merely as a mass of ruins. 
The good intention of its builder miscarried, for ■ .ough 
the hot and mineral waters, which here gush forth from 
natural springs, are renowned for their curative prop- 
erties, yet they are not availed of as they should be. The 
house itself is occupied by some wretched families of 
black and colored people, who live here in a state of 
squalor and misery. From the ruined parapet of the 
castellated structure lies outspread a beautiful view of 
Nevis : the mountains sweeping up from the sloping lower 
land, where the town lies hidden in cocoa palms and with 
St. Kitts, blue and misty, beyond — a fair picture, in spite 
of the desolation. 

Immediately below are the baths, in the open air, 
beneath date palms and mango trees, with a tepid stream 
running from them to the sea. Here the sound of blows 
attracts attention, and soon the visitor finds that he has 
invaded the sacred precincts of the washerwomen. 

As the air is hot and the water is warm the women see 



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ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 301 

no need for attire of any sort, and most of them are in a 
state of nudity. There are old black crones and young 
brown matrons, slips of maids and skinny pickaninnies 
hopping about and wading in the water like so many black 
birds in the Garden of Eden. 

On a hillside slope above the only town in Nevis are to 
be seen the ruins of a once magnificent " great house," 
which once pertained to an estate of vast extent. Around 
it spreads a terraced garden filled with the remains of 
stately tropic trees and ornamental shrubbery. A mag- 
nificent grove of mango trees, their dense crowns 
spangled with golden fruit, surrounds the ruined house 
and garden, isolating them completely. Some of the 
mangos climb the hill and enter the forest which runs 
down from the mountain and thus form a connecting link 
between the different kinds of vegetation. 

The upper cone of the mountain is completely encircled 
by a forest of great trees, composed of giant gums, silk- 
cottons, mountain palms, and matted together by miles of 
vines and bush ropes. This is the natural home of the 
monkeys, from which they go out on foraging excursions 
to the deserted plantations. The nearest living neigh- 
bors, in fact, to the house and plantation we have 
described, are the wild monkeys of the northern forest ; 
and yet that ruined house, so desolate and fallen to de- 
cay, is pointed out as the birthplace of Alexander Ham- 
ilton. 

The father of Alexander Hamilton was a Scotch 
merchant, who had married a young French woman, and 
their son was born in Nevis, the nth of Januar}', 1757. 
Here the boy lived until eleven years old, whert-he was 
sent to Santa Cruz, whence he soon made his way to the 
United States, never to return to his native island. 



302 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

There is probably no legend of the Greek mythology 
that dies harder than that of the Amazonas or Amazons, 
fierce fighting women, who have held man at bay for so 
many centuries. They were located in various parts of 
Asia, and finally in Africa, but long after the crystalliza- 
tion of the myth into the Grecian stories of gods, heroes, 
and heroines, the tale survived, or rather reappeared, in 
the new world, 

Columbus, as we know, when seeking a passage across 
to Asia, was all the time dwelling upon old-world tradi- 
tions, and had in mind only what had been written by 
voyagers and travelers in the east. In the Island of Cuba 
he sought the court of the Grand Khan, in Haiti the 
Cipango of Marco Polo, and throughout his first voyage 
to America looked for the verification of Oriental fables 
and expected at every turn to come across their fabulous 
monsters. 

Near the termination of that voyage, when in the Bay 
of Samana, on the north coast of Santo Domingo, he 
heard of something that set his blood tingling and caused 
him to shape his course southward instead of toward 
Spain and the home port. Some of the Indians captured 
there told him of an island of the Caribbees that was 
inhabited solely by women, and, taking them aboard as 
pilots, he steered in the direction they indicated, resolved 
to add the discovery and conquest of the Amazons to the 
fruits of that memorable voyage. 

The prevailing trade winds, however, were baffling, his 
provisions and water ran short, and instead he turned 
about and bore up for the Azores and Spain, taking along 
with him the unfortunate Indians. 

But he did not lose sight of the story, and when, nearly 
a year later, he set sail from Cadiz with his fleet of seven- 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 303 

teen ships and caravels he was so far influenced by the 
reports of Caribs and Amazons to be found nearer the 
equator than the island he had discovered on the first 
voyage, that he went several degrees farther to the 
southward, and discovered the island of Montserrat. 

When a successful settlement was started by the 
English in the near Island of Nevis, an overflow portion 
went to Montserrat, allured by the rich lands suitable for 
sugar cultivation. It was the discontented part that left 
Nevis for Montserrat, and composed mainly of Irish 
Catholics. In proof of this, although the event occurred 
as far back as 1632, may be pointed out the fact that 
many of the present inhabitants, even the negroes, speak 
English with a brogue, having an Hibernian accent per- 
fectly delicious. 

It is told of a modern exile from Erin, who had con- 
cluded to seek a refuge in Montserrat, that as the ship 
he was on cast anchor in the harbor of Plymouth, the only 
town of the island, he leaned over the rail and entered 
into conversation wdth a black bumboatman, who came 
out to sell his provisions. 

" Say, Cuff ee, phwat's the chance for a lad ashore ? " 

'' Good, yer honor, if ye'r not afraid of wurruk. But 
me name's not Cuffee, an', plase ye, it's Pat Mulvaney." 

*■' Mulvaney ? And do yez mean to say ye'r Oirish ? " 

" Oi do." ' 

" The saints dayfind us. An' how long have yez been 
out here? " 

" A matter uv tin year or so." 

" Tin year ! An' yez black as me hat ! May the divil 
fly away wid me if I iver set fut on this ould oisland. 
Save me sowl, I tuk yez fer a naygur ! " 

Montserrat has been in continuous British possession 



304 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ever since 1784, and until about forty years ago its people 
were almost exclusively devoted to the raising of sugar 
cane. About that time some merchants having business 
with the island conceived the idea of planting a few 
unprofitable estates that had come into their possession 
with lime trees. 

Over in the adjacent island of Dominica a resident 
physician there, Dr. Imray, had made the experiment 
with great promise of success ; and the physical character- 
istics of both islands are the same. Each one consists 
mainly of a mass of mountains thrown up from the sea, 
with deep gorges running up into the central range and a 
belt of exceedingly fertile soil around the coast. 

Owing to the restricted area of soil suitable for sugar 
plantations they had long since ceased to pay, one after 
another becoming saddled with a mortgage that the 
owner could not raise, and falling into the hands of Lon- 
don merchants who had advanced money for their 
working. 

The taking up of the lime industry saved the little 
island from actual distress, and to-day a single firm owns 
more than 600 acres, and exports annually 100,000 gal- 
lons of concentrated lime juice. 

When I was in Montserrat a few years ago the leading 
planters were the Sturges, English merchants of Quaker 
stock, celebrated for their philanthropy. One of the fam- 
ily, Joseph Sturge^ was a friend and correspondent for 
many years of the poet Whittier. 

Beautiful Montserrat is associated in my mind with the 
discovery there of a new species of bird. It was in 1880, 
on my second trip to the West Indies, that I first heard 
the note of this bird, issuing from the tree-ferns of a 
ravine near the Soufriere summit. My ear had been 



ST. KITTS, NEVIS, MONTSERRATT 305 

trained to a nicety in detecting strange bird-calls, and 
this one, I knew at once, I had never heard before. 

Carefully parting the vegetation that obscured my 
vision, I peered into the ravine and there saw a bird in 
black and orange plumage, a modest imitation of our 
golden oriole, poised upon a branch. The sad sequel 
is that I shot it, and ultimately it was sent to Washing- 
ton, where it was pronounced absolutely new and was 
named after its discoverer. The genus to which it 
belonged was well known, but not the species, so to the 
generic name, Icterus, was affixed my own as the specific 
appellation, making it the Icterus Oheri, by which it is 
called by ornithologists to-day, after having existed 
unknown and unnamed ever since the world and all living 
things were created. 



CHAPTER XIX 
ANTIGUA, BARBUDA, AND OTHER ISLES 

Antigua, capital of the Leeward Islands — Saint John and its 
cathedral — The valley of petrifactions — English Harbor, 
a forgotten naval station — Barbuda and its history — The 
Codrington game preserve — An island of sinister fame 
where many wrecks have taken place — Wild cattle, fallow 
deer, guinea-fowl, pigeons, and doves — Buccaneer tower 
and the great house — Two white residents and eight hun- 
dred negroes — Shooting wild guinea-birds — Feathered 
thunderbolts — Toothsome pullets with tropic concomitants 
— Tramping over the island — The parson takes the author 
out deer-hunting — The trip to Bat Cave — Migratory white- 
headed pigeons — The sea-grape fruit — Shooting birds by 
moonlight — What the West Indies got from Africa — Troll- 
ing for kingfish and dolphins — The beach with blushes of 
carmine — Anguilla, Sombrero, Saint Barts, and Saint 
Martins. 

FOR governmental purposes, the British islands of 
the Caribbees have been arbitrarily divided into 
the " Leeward " and " Windward " groups, the 
former lying to the north and the latter to the south of 
north latitude fifteen from the equator. 

The seat of government and residence of the governor- 
in-chief is Antigua, an island about a hundred square 
miles in area, devoted to agriculture in general, and to 
sugar, molasses, and rum in particular. It can boast of 
having been a British possession for 270 years, and, like 
Barbados, has never been anything but English since it 
was first settled. 

306 



ANTIGUA AND OTHER ISLES 307 

It was, the aboriginal Caribs said, too dry for them, 
having no natural springs and streams, and it has proved 
not much better for the British planters; but they have 
stuck there with more than praiseworthy pertinacity, and 
to-day its capital and only town of Saint John is a place 
of some attractions and consequence. By a strange mis- 
chance, however, the capital has been located on the 
worst sort of a harbor; while the only good natural port 
in the island, English Harbor, seized long ago as a naval 
station, has hardly more than a single inhabitant. 

I wish I could convey to the reader an exact estimate 
of Antigua's charms; but that, I fear, is impossible, for 
one must have been there to appreciate them, as they 
were of the hospitable sort. The island has few natural 
attractions; but there is a wonderful valley of petrifac- 
tions not far from the capital, and at the right season the 
lagoons and meadows afford fine plover, duck, and cur- 
lew shooting to one inclined that way, while the fields and 
pastures are always inviting — provided water enough has 
fallen from the clouds to make them green. With a 
gently rolling surface, rarely rising into hills, and with 
large areas of sugar-cane in cultivation, dotted with mills 
and habitations, Antigua is refreshing to view, as a 
decided contrast to the more rugged islands of the chain. 

I do not desire to treat Antigua slightingly; but, taking 
a general survey of its attractions,— or, rather, lack of 
them, — there does not seem to be enough in the aggre- 
gate to warrant a visit. And yet, if one should go there 
furnished with the proper credentials to some member of 
its official society, I doubt not that a month could be 
passed very agreeably indeed. It may be my misfortune 
—perhaps it is my fault — that I incline more to the lesser- 
known islands, and those seldom visited, shunning cities 



3o8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

and society in general, and " taking to the woods " when- 
ever opportunity offers. But I have held, for many 
years, and hold to the opinion still, that the out-of-the- 
way places are the best worth investigating. Now, there 
is an island about thirty miles north of Antigua, of which 
it is a dependency, where the steamers never touch 
(except they run against some one of its numerous reefs, 
and then they remain for good and all) and where the 
tourist never goes. This island is Barbuda, about ten 
miles long, with an area of seventy-five square miles, the 
greater portion covered with dense forest or chaparral. 

About thirty years after the planters had settled in 
Antigua the French from Martinique combined with a 
band of Carib Indians to ravage the island with fire and 
sword, taking away all the negro slaves and plundering 
the white people of everything they possessed, even to 
the clothing on their backs and the shoes on their feet. 
For several years after this event the Antiguans were 
unable to make head against their many calamities, but 
about the year 1674 there came here, from Barbados, a 
wealthy and honorable gentleman of distinguished family. 
Colonel Codrington, who set an example to the others 
by planting the waste lands with sugar-cane. He was 
later made captain-general and commander-in-chief of all 
the Leeward Islands, and thus was the first of a long line 
of sub-governors, which has existed to the present time. 

To Colonel Codrington Barbados owes its charming 
seat of learning, Codrington College, founded by him 
about 1710, and in many other ways he showed his pub- 
lic spirit and interest in the welfare of these islands. 

Colonel Codrington, it seems, had an eye to personal 
aggrandizement, and early in his rule obtained possession 
of the outlying island of Barbuda. It was not long 



ANTIGUA AND OTHER ISLES 309 

before he had stocked it with cattle, sheep, fallow deer 
from England, and guinea-fowl, so that we may safely 
say that the island was made a game preserve more than 
200 years ago. And, as those cattle, sheep and deer soon 
ran wild, while the island was the natural home of doves, 
pigeons, plover, curlew and many other birds, it goes 
without saying that Barbuda became so well stocked that 
royalty itself would not scorn to own it and to shoot there 
on occasion. 

Some negro slaves and an overseer were sent over at 
the time of the first settlement, and they, too (at least 
the blacks), obeyed the injunction literally to increase 
and multiply. At the beginning of this century there 
were 200 negro residents and one white ; on the occasion 
of my visit, a few years ago, there were about 800 black 
residents and two white men. 

In the year 1813 the British man-of-war " Woolwich " 
was wrecked at Barbuda in a furious hurricane. The 
officers and crew escaped to the island, which was 
described by the captain, who wrote that it had, at that 
time, few blacks resident there, and one white man, the 
overseer or lessee. An income of about $35,000 was 
annually derived from wrecks and sales of live stock. 
Almost the entire island was covered with wood and the 
stock ran wild — reckoned at 3000 cattle, 40,000 sheep, 
400 horses, and 300 deer. Bull-hunting was a sport fre- 
quently indulged in with blood-hounds from Puerto 
Rico. By means of cordons of negroes vast flocks of 
sheep were driven upon narrow necks of enclosed land 
between arms of the sea, and thus easily captur'ed when 
wanted for market. The wild cattle, when caught, were 
lashed to the horns of tame oxen, who were then turned 
loose, and never failed eventually to conduct them to 



3IO OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

headquarters. Guinea-fowl, even then, were to be found 
in profusion; also wild duck, plover, and snipe in their 
season, pigeons, turtle-doves, etc. Captain Sullivan 
mentions the stone castle, built by the buccaneers, who 
used to resort here as a rendezvous, after the dispersal of 
the French and English of St. Kitts about 1630. 

The first object that attracted my attention as the little 
sloop in which I had taken passage from Antigua arrived 
within sight of Barbuda was a quaint old martello tower, 
which once pertained to a castle, erected by the bucca- 
neers. There were no other structures of note in sight, 
and only after a weary walk of about three miles was I 
cheered by arriving at the " great house," built in the 
flourishing times of the Codringtons. A great wall had 
accompanied me along the road, broad-topped, high and 
deeply based, showing that compulsory labor was at one 
time abundant. 

The white gentlerfien residing there had leased the 
island from the Crown and were " working it for all it 
was worth." One of them was a clergyman of the 
Church of England, and the other a planter bred to the 
raising of sugar-cane and the oversight of laborers; so 
both together made a very successful combination. As 
the " parson " was pledged to attend to the spiritual needs 
of the black people and the overseer to their physical 
wants, the blacks were not neglected. They worked 
hard in the fields six days in the week, under the eye of 
the superintendent, and on the seventh attended services 
at the chapel. 

As the-.island had been without news from outside for 
many moons, I was made more than welcome, and im- 
mediately my wants were made known I was furnished 
with a horse, a sable servant and dog, who accompanied 



ANTIGUA AND OTHER ISLES 311 

me on my excursions afield. Our first visit was to a vast 
inclosure where the guinea-fowl were said to be abun- 
dant, and we arrived at their scratching ground about mid- 
afternoon. The dog put up a fine male bird and I let go 
both barrels at him without touching a feather. It was 
the same with the second and the third bird that got up 
and sailed away into the dim distance, like a railroad 
train making up for lost time. 

Puzzled and ashamed at my poor shooting, I vowed 
that the next flock I saw on the ground should not be 
allowed to take wing without a pot shot, anyway ; but 
even then there was somehow a discrepancy between my 
anticipations and realizations. I never before in my life 
saw such fast birds on the wing nor such rapid ones 
afoot. They were thoroughly wild, and probably had 
been for many generations. 

At last, as the sun was sinking behind the sea-grapes 
on the shore, we approached an old field where, my guide 
said, there was sure to be a flock " dusting," and if warily 
approached could be taken easily. This time, as the 
chattering fowl hurled themselves into the air, I caught 
two of them, right and left, by firing ahead of them about 
half a rod, it seemed to me. Anyway, they tumbled end 
over end, and I was rewarded for my hours of toil 
beneath the ardent rays of a tropical sun. The pair 
weighed seven pounds, and that night we had the 
tenderer of the two, a comely pullet, roasted for dinner. 
It was brought to the table garnished with all sorts of 
good things, the huge platter on which it lay being borne 
aloft upon the head of a grinning cook who could boast 
lineal descent from the very first of his line brought to 
the island by " Massa Codrington." 

And it was toothsome — the pullet — despite the haste 



312 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

with which it had been divested of its feathers and driven 
direct to the spit. This hurried mode of preparation was 
riot due to any exigency of the occasion, but to the cuh- 
nary customs of the tropics. The people of the islands 
have no cold storage, hardly any of them refrigerators. 
The journey from the coop or fowl yard to the pot or 
spit is only delayed long enough to deprive the victim of 
such portion of its tegumentary covering and internal 
arrangements as are considered superfluous ; and the hen, 
cock, or chicken that gazes up at you so unsuspiciously 
as you arrive at the great house, an hour or so later may 
be reposing on a platter with its toes turned up to the 
ceiling. The smaller fowls, particularly pigeons and 
chickens, are generally roasted with their feet on, and as 
they lie on their backs in supplicatory pose they present 
a most affecting spectacle. 

After a refreshing night beneath the mosquito curtains, 
at dawn next morning I was called for a bath, and then, 
swallowing a biscuit and cup of strong cofifee, was o& 
with my guide for the deer preserve. Whatever may be 
the heat of the day in those islands, the nights and early 
mornings are delightfully cool ; so we tramped through 
the lanes and cross the fields to the woods as vigorously 
as though taking a spin in the north. The woods were 
dense, and we merely skirted their borders, keeping well 
in their shadows, for at that hour the deer would be feed- 
ing mostly in the open fields. Finally my man pointed 
eagerly ahead to a bunch of wild cattle grazing quietly 
about 300 yards away, and exclaimed : " Look dah, sah ; 
yander's a fine buck, right close t' dat ole bull. My heart, 
what ho'ns he got !" Unfortunately for the success of 
my plans, the cur dog with us, who always jogged at our 
heels when wanted ahead on the trail, saw or sniffed the 



ANTIGUA AND OTHER ISLES 313 

deer at the same time, and immediately straightened out 
his crooked legs and darted off in the direction of the 
herd, yelping in a way that would have waked the dead. 
Of course, no deer in possession of his faculties would 
wait for us after that rude salutation, and there was a 
lightning-like stampede, not only of three bucks and 
does, which had been feeding unobserved, but of the wild 
cattle in whose company they were. 

We tramped all that morning, saw several deer at a 
distance, and signs of an innumerable multitude ; but the 
only real satisfaction I experienced was when William 
Jack, my guide, after a hard chase, captured and " lam- 
basted dat fool dawg " until he begged for mercy. 

Said Mr. Hopkins, the overseer, as we sat on the ve- 
randa after dinner : " Day after to-morrow is Sunday, 
and the only day I have off. Just keep shy of the parson 
and I'll put you up to a bunch of deer that have never 
been shot at. But mum's the word, my boy." 

Said the parson, as he lighted me to my room that 
night : " I've got my sermon finished and not much to 
do to-morrow. I'll take you with me over to Bat Cave, 
and if we don't get a fine, fat buck, going or coming back, 
there will be something amiss." 

When the overseer saw us ambling off, " an hour by 
sun," on Saturday morning, he put his tongue in his 
cheek and nodded significantly, as if to say : " So ho, if 
you go with the parson to-day then you'll have to attend 
chapel with him to-morrow." But he took it good- 
naturedly. 

It was a most enjoyable ride we had along the shore 
to Bat Cave, where the Caribs once encamped and left 
behind their stone implements of warfare as tokens of 
their presence here in the distant past. Then we routed 



314 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

and followed for a while a flock of wild sheep, finally 
arriving at a big ceiba tree in the corner of a wall, where 
the shade was grateful and the protection complete. 

Directing our sable attendant to take the horses back a 
bit on the trail, the parson told me to creep up to the wall 
and peep through a chink between the stones, at the same 
time making no noise. I did so, wonderingly but still 
alert, for I knew there must be method in his proceedings, 
and was rewarded by seeing something that caused me to 
tremble and clutch my gun convulsively. I glanced back 
at my friend to assure myself that he was not playing a 
joke on me ; for, there in front of me, not forty yards 
away, was a fallow " buck complete," as big and as stately 
as any that ever cOursed through any English park. 

The wind was from him to us, so he suspected nothing, 
and, with the suspicion still upon me that the parson was 
putting me up to a domesticated deer, I asked him with 
my eyes if I should shoot. He nodded yes, and shoot I 
did, with the result that the spare horse we had brought 
along — and at the sight of which Hopkins, the overseer, 
had laughed himself almost ill — was laden with the big- 
gest buck of the season as we returned homeward that 
forenoon. 

Toothsome venison that night for dinner, together with 
the omnipresent guinea-bird and concomitants of tropic 
vegetables and fruits, made a feast fit for anybody, the re- 
membrance of which, even at this day so far distant, 
causes a thrill of pleasure, thinking of what I once en- 
joyed, though now debarred. And the next day not only 
did I attend chapel (so grateful was I to the parson), but 
also induced the overseer to go with me, much to the joy 
of our clerical friend, who was nearly overcome by the 
unusual happening. 



ANTIGUA AND OTHER ISLES 315 

I do not know if the genial overseer, Mr. Hopkins, is 
yet alive, nor if the hospitable parson who " put me on 
to " the fallow deer is still caring for the unregenerate 
blacks ; but if they are not, doubtless they left successors, 
who will accord the visitor a most generous reception. 
One thing is certain, there is no island of the West Indies 
better stocked with game of the sort I have mentioned 
than this of Barbuda. 

Along with the negro, when he was torn from his 
native Africa and transported to the West Indies, came 
some products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms not 
enumerated on the manifests — as, for instance, a stock 
of African superstitions and religious customs which 
have developed into the serpent sorcery practiced by the 
mountaineers of Haiti and other islands ; guinea-grass, 
guinea-corn, and finally guinea-birds or fowls, all of 
which have done well in the American tropics. 

Like the negro, the guinea-fowl has found the climate 
and productions of the southern islands just suited to 
its w^arm-blooded and vivacious nature, and in certain 
parts of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and other smaller 
islands, has become the leading game bird of the country. 
There is, in fact, no wild feathered game to rival it, either 
in size or quality, throughout all the West Indies. 

Barbuda is not the only island of the Caribbees out of 
touch with steamers and civilization, for there are some 
much larger and more populous to the west and north- 
west, like Sombrero, so-called because it resembles a gray 
felt hat at a distance ; Anguilla, the salt island ; Saint 
Barts, which was once owned by France and Sweden 
conjointly, but now belongs to the latter country, though 
the inhabitants all speak English ; and Saint Martin, 
which, though only thirty-eight square miles in area, is 



3i6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

divided between the French and the Dutch. Of them all, 
perhaps, the island of Saint Barts, or Bartholomew, is the 
best known, though the phosphate workings on Sombrero 
have made it somewhat celebrated ; for Saint Barts was 
anciently the eastern headquarters of the buccaneers, 
especially of the fierce Montbars, the " Exterminator," 
who made its sheltered and beautiful port his rendezvous. 
Along with 'Statia and the Dutch islands generally, Saint 
Barts became the resort of privateers, as it had been of 
buccaneers during the American Revolution, and lost, it 
is said, more than two million dollars' worth of contraband 
goods in 1782, which were seized by Admiral Rodney. 
The island is practically defunct now, having lost all but 
its prestige and its natural beauties of surface and shore, 
being merely a dependency of Guadeloupe. 

Saint Martin is the finest of the group, with lofty hills, 
and one mountain, Paradise Peak, nearly 2000 feet in 
height. The French population of its northern half reside 
in or near the quaint old town of Marigot, while the Hol- 
landers occupy the port of Philipsburg, on the south 
shore, as their capital. 

These islands may be reached by sailing vessels from 
Antigua, Guadeloupe, or Saint Kitts, and to the student 
of nature and man have much to offer in requital for 
slight discomforts on the way thither and on shore. 



CHAPTER XX 
GUADELOUPE AND THE DIABLOTIN 

Guadeloupe, largest island of the Caribbees — Famous navigators 
.who have sailed these waters — French thrift as contrasted 
with Creole mismanagement — How the French islands are 
governed — The preponderance of the blacks — A menace 
. to the Caribbees — The gendarmes of Guadeloupe and Mar- 
tinique — French colonial system not yet perfect — Arson 
and pillage by the blacks — The two parts of a twin island 
— Pointe a Pitre and Basse Terre compared — The mag- 
nificent mountains — Matouba and the coffee region — The 
Governor's retreat in the hills — Hot baths and high-woods 
r— Climbing to the crater of the great Soufriere — On the 
trail of Pere Labat — Hunting the devil-bird, or diablotin. 

A BOUT one-third down the Caribbean Chain Hes 
/ \ Guadeloupe, the largest island in it. The dis- 
J^ JL tance from Saba to Grenada, these two islands 
representing the extremes of the chain, is just six degrees 
of latitude, Guadeloupe is about the same distance from 
Saba as it is from its sister French island of Martinique, 
or nearly loo miles ; Barbados, off to the windward, is 
about as far from Saint Vincent as the latter is from 
Grenada, and the last named equally distant from Tobago 
and Trinidad. 

Discovered by Columbus in November, 1493, the island 
called by the natives Turuqueira was named by him 
Guadalupe, since its occupation by the French being 
known as Guadeloupe. For a while after the voyages of 
Columbus made this region known, the Spaniards had 

317 



31 8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

it all to themselves ; but about thirty years after its 
discovery the French and English swarmed into the 
Caribbean Sea, and began to squabble over the islands 
as if they alone were entitled to them all. French cor- 
sairs and British privateers made the Caribbee Isles their 
rendezvous, while both combined to plunder Spanish 
galleons coming up from the isthmus of Panama laden 
-with silver. 

Of the score of islands which France won by her 
sword and settled with her colonists but five and a half 
remain to her now, within the confines of the Caribbean 
Sea. The five are Guadeloupe, Martinique, Desirade, 
Marie Galante, the Saintes, and a moiety of the insig- 
nificant island. Saint Martin. Thousands of lives, mill- 
ions of treasure, have been wasted in acquiring and 
defending these islands of the West Indies, yet to-day 
not one is profitable to the nation owning it. 

Of the two large islands owned by France in the West 
Indies Guadeloupe is the greater in area, consisting 
properly of two islands — one an immense mountain mass, 
with beautiful valleys and forest-covered hills, an inac- 
tive volcano, hot and mineral springs, and coffee planta- 
tions. Separated from the mountainous island by a 
sluggish creek, the Riviere Salee, running through man- 
grove swamps, is the lowland portion, called the Grande 
Terre, with level surface, rich soil, and plantations of 
sugar-cane. All over and throughout this double island 
are the best of roads-, even running up to the woods that 
border on the gloomy crater of the quiescent volcano. 

Here, as well as in the sister colony of Martinique, will 
be noted the thrift and good management of the French, 
as contrasted with the shiftless methods of the Spanish 
formerlv in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Wherever the 



GUADELOUPE AND THE DIABLOTIN 319 

French go, there they carry with them good roads and 
generally good government. We may truly term them 
the Roman road-builders of the present day, for through- 
out all their domains, colonial as well as continental, they 
construct broad, straight highways, smooth as marble 
and as hard as iron. The writer has seen them in these 
islands as well as in Algiers, on the borders of the Sahara, 
their smooth surfaces a delight to the eye and a joy to 
travel over. 

Although Guadeloupe is French all the way through, 
French the language spoken, and a French patois the 
speech of the lowliest, yet there are comparatively few na- 
tives here now of La Belle France. In the matter of gov- 
ernment the island is more at the mercy of the national 
system than at fault through local blunders. That is, 
since all Frenchmen persist in calling their compatriots, 
home and colonial, " men and brothers," it has finally 
come to pass that the local legislatures and assemblies are 
controlled by the blacks, who are in a vast majority. 

Their preponderance has become a grave problem, in 
fact, not alone in the French islands, but in the English, 
Dutch, and Danish. Whatever men may say to the con- 
trary, it is the tendency of the black to revert to primi- 
tive conditions, finally (as in Haiti) to lapse into a state 
of semi-barbarism, unless held in check by a superior 
body of whites. 

Now, this is not a theory, but a very serious condition, 
and it confronts the West Indians, menaces them contin- 
ually, despite the fact that they have labored hard to bring 
their respective colonial dependencies to the high level 
of the home countries. It is only by the most earnest 
and aggressive sort of work that they have been able to 
keep their noses above water, even ; and, as it is, they 



320 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

have been forced to witness a constant degeneration of 
moral tone in communities and a persistent deterioration 
in realties. 

Their only salvation, they now realize, lies in main- 
taining the integrity of appointments by the home gov- 
ernment as checks upon the extravagance and prospec- 
tive lawlessness of the local assemblies. Thus, the head 
of the insular government, the governor, is appointed 
from France — invariably a white man of high standing — 
as are also several of the higher officials. Again, to 
further offset the possible centralization of power in the 
hands of the island police, who are mainly black and 
colored, in each important center, town, or village is 
quartered a squad of picked gensdarmes, recruited in the 
home country. 

Respecting the French colonial system as applied to 
the West Indian islands, an American resident at one 
time in Guadeloupe wrote me : " Any system of govern- 
ment primarily intended for the benefit of a colony will, 
if persisted in, ultimately result in good for both colony 
and mother country ; but no system which is liable to 
constant change, and which is consistent only in seeking 
the immediate benefit of the home country, can result 
otherwise than as here. Every new Minister of Col- 
onies in France brings to his work the superb courage of 
utter ignorance. He demolishes the half-completed 
labor of his predecessor and leaves his Own rough foun- 
dations and scaffoldings to be destroyed by his successor. 

" They all alike seek to make something out of the col- 
ony merely, and have not the courage to work on broad, 
generous lines for the benefit of both colony and mother- 
land in the future. The history of this unfortunate 
colony amply proves this. To-day we have a horde of 



GUADELOUPE AND THE DIABLOTIN 321 

emotional negroes, drunk with a little learning, crazed 
with anger against the ill-concealed scorn of the whites, 
furious under a false equality they cannot sustain, blindly 
seeking redress more for imaginary than real evils, and, 
African like, finding their readiest remedy in blood and 
fire (as in Haiti). They have sworn to drive the white 
man hence — and they will do it yet! It will mean ruin 
to them; but they cannot see that; they see only the 
immediate destruction of the white man's property, and 
himself, also — if possible." 

Thi.s letter was evoked by the fact that incendiary fires 
in Pointe a Pitre, the capital of Guadeloupe, accom- 
panied by a rising of the blacks, had worked ruin and 
destruction in that city. Arson and pillage are not new 
troubles with which the island government has to con- 
tend, for, looking back to my first visit to Guadeloupe, 
more. than twenty years before this letter was written, 
I recall that even then they were going on. And yet, on 
the surface, Guadeloupe appears to be the best governed 
and most refined of the insular colonies. 

Its chief port is that of Pointe a Pitre, which is in 
the Grande Terre portion of the double island, and shel- 
tered, but right in the path of the hurricanes; so that 
between the incendiaries and the cyclones the " Pointe " 
has suffered considerably. Writing twenty-five years 
ago, on the occasion of my first visit there, I remarked: 
" The loss of life in these successive disasters (of hurri- 
canes, earthquakes, and fires) has been fearful; but these 
courageous Creoles have faith in the future of their city, 
and I doubt if they once give a thought to the mighty 
power against which they are contending — that they are 
fighting forces controlled by nature's laws, that will 
always operate in the same manner and place, without 



322 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

regard to the little doings of mankind." The sequel has 
proved that they had better have abandoned their badly- 
situated capital once for all, especially as it is at times 
fever-stricken, and always plagued with mosquitoes. 

Then, as now, Pointe a Pitre was the center of business 
and the outlet of the sugar industry, at that time even 
boasting the second largest " uisine " or central sugar 
factory in the world. The Grande Terre portion is 
almost entirely level, having a similar geological structure 
or composition to Antigua, but being more fertile. 
There are miles and miles of sugar-cane in that low-lying 
portion of Guadeloupe, and nearest to it lie the imme- 
diate dependencies, Desirade and Marie Galante, while 
the Saintes are further to the south. 

These are extremely picturesque islets, being elevated 
and terraced, some of them having thermal springs, and 
formerly in repute as watering-places. Historically, 
they belong to the most interesting islands of the Carib- 
bees, for they were among the first of any discovered by 
Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, and still 
retain the name he bestowed upon them, changed only 
from the Spanish to the French, like the great island of 
which they are dependencies. 

A small steamer trips over to the islets once a week, 
and there is a semi-weekly local connecting Pointe a 
Pitre (through the Riviere Salee) with Basse Terre, 
which is the seat of government and capital. There is 
also a diligence route along the southern and eastern 
shores of Guadeloupe proper, by which a pleasant jour- 
ney may be made between the two points in about eight 
hours, including a steam launch across the Cul de Sac of 
Pointe a Pitre. 

Basse Terre was found in 1703 by that good old 



GUADELOUPE AND THE DIABLOTIN 323 

preacher and traveler, Pere Labat. He was known as 
the '' bellicose White Father," the traditions state, because 
he could fight as well as preach. The town is full of 
his monuments — such as the hurricanes have spared 
— chief of which is the old Basilique of Basse Terre. 
Situated on an open roadstead, Basse Terre has not the 
advantages of the Pointe; but it is better worth seeing, 
being so near the mountains as to partake of their attrac- 
tions. It has a plaza, in the center of which is a fountain 
supplied with water from the mountain streams, and sur- 
rounding which are substantial houses of stone. 

As the heat along shore is always intense, and particu- 
larly in our summer months, all the white people who can 
do so take refuge in the hills and mountains. Guad- 
eloupe has a vast range with numerous peaks rising 
above two or three thousand feet, while its chief eleva- 
tion, the volcano or Soufriere, is about 5000 feet. Good 
roads lead into the hills and all the summits are more or 
less accessible, especially the cone of the volcano. 

During my first visit here I hunted in the hills and 
scaled the Soufriere, sought out the beautiful water- 
falls, and bathed in the tepid streams; so I may be 
allowed to speak as if " by the card " of Guadeloupe's 
various attractions. My first venture was at a little 
mountain hamlet overlooking the Caribbean Sea called 
Matouba, where for ten days I roamed the hills and 
valleys in quest of birds. Learning that there was a 
gentleman who spoke English in the neighboring com- 
mune — of which he was the mayor, in fact — I one day 
wended my way thither, to be greeted cordially by 
Monsieur Saint-Felix Colardeau, a graduate of Yale, who 
had lived for several years in the Northern States. Hav- 
ing fallen heir to a beautiful coffee estate amid the foot- 



324 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

hills of the Soufriere, he had abandoned his practice of 
medicine and settled down to a life of seclusion. 

Though a perfect stranger to him, he insisted that I 
should take up my abode with him until I had secured 
the birds I wanted and explored the volcano. This I 
did, of course, and am indebted to my good friend for 
many an hour filled with information respecting things 
new and strange to me then. A dozen years later, when 
I revisited the island, M. Colardeau, who was then 
director of the Jardine des Plantes, introduced me offici- 
ally to the Governor, M. Nouet, who invited me to spend 
a week or so at his " hotel " at Camp Jacob. 

The Governor's country seat in the mountains was in 
the vicinity of M. Colardeau's estate, where I had passed 
so many happy hours, and whence I had made my ascent 
of the Soufriere. There were at that time more than a 
thousand coffee estates in Guadeloupe, all, of course, in 
the mountainous island, and the air was fragrant with 
coffee blossoms, the hillsides covered with plantations. 
Governor Nouet had opened trails and bridle-paths 
through the " high-woods," as the great mountain forests 
are called, to the hot springs and baths therein concealed. 
One of these is known as the Bain Jaune, probably so 
called from the color of its water, which is tinged as 
well as impregnated with sulphur. 

This bath is near the skirts of the woods that cover 
a shoulder of the Soufriere, above which is barrerness 
and desolation. As the Governor and I were taking a 
dip in it one day, and he was telling me of the beauty of 
the ferns above on the trail to the crater, I asked him 
if there were any descriptions extant of the Soufriere 
which would inform me as to its salient features. I 
recall that his eyes twinkled, while mine ■ dilated, as he 




Cascade in the Jardin des PI antes. 



GUADELOUPE AND THE DIABLOTIX 325 

replied that the first description he had ever read, and 
which inspired him with a desire to achieve the ascent 
of the volcano, was one written by myself ! 

Of a truth, I had forgotten it, and was going to 
" tackle " that volcano as if it were something I had never 
seen. But, as the Governor reminded me of different 
passages in my description of the ascent, it all came back 
to me. I recalled the kindness of good Madame Col- 
ardeau, who provided me with a knapsack full of cooked 
provisions, and the thoughtfulness of her husband (dead, 
now, .and gone to heaven, rest his soul!), who furnished 
an . Indian coolie as a guide. 

What joy was mine as I plunged into the fresh, dank 
vegetation of the high-woods and essayed the climb up 
the heights beyond! There were the mighty gommier 
trees, with broad buttresses twenty feet across, and leafy 
crowns that merged in the common canopy a hundred 
feet above my head. And the lianas, the vines and bush- 
ropes, which descended to earth as if dropped down from 
the skies, were, some of them, as large as hawsers and 
cables, and adorned with a world of aerial blossoms. 

Reaching a stream the waters of which were warm, I 
traced it to its source in a spring that gushed from under 
the hill, coming straight from Nature's arcanum in the 
heart of the volcano. I followed it up, finally striking the 
trail to the crater-cone, my guide going ahead and tunnel- 
ing out a path through the ferns with his machete. For 
hours, it seemed to me, we burrowed through the dank, 
dwarfed growth, then suddenly daylight looked in and I 
saw before me the cone of the volcano. Imagine, I 
wrote at the time, an immense pyramid truncated by some 
internal force, that has rent its sides at the same time, 
leaving the summit-plane around strewn with huge rocks. 



326 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

and a mighty chasm where 'twas reft in twain, and you 
have the Soufriere of Guadeloupe to-day. 

That " to-day " is now yesterday, a quarter-century 
gone; but, so far as I can ascertain, the crater is 
unchanged. Ravines seamed the sides of the cone in every 
direction, some spanned by bridges of natural rock; but 
that to which I constantly recurred was the great central 
gorge, with its wicked-looking throat, from which there 
have been only two eruptions recorded within little more 
than a century: one in 1797, and another in 1815. 
Doubtless it may again act as the vent for the internal 
ebullitions of mother earth — as I wrote at the time in my 
journal — but during the eruptions of Pelee and the 
Soufriere of Saint Vincent, in May, 1902, the Gaudeloupe 
giant held its peace. I have since climbed Popocatepetl, 
in Mexico, and also nearly all the volcanoes of the Ca- 
ribbees ; but over no ascent was I so elated as on this 
occasion — probably because it was my first one. 

How the solfataras puffed and snorted, the sulphur 
crystals gleamed, the blasts of hot air smote my face, as 
I rambled over the area of desolation within the crater! 
When the mist lifted, at intervals, I caught glimpses of 
the forests down below in which, more than four hundred 
years before, some of the company with Columbus were 
lost. It was still a sloping plain of verdure, almost as 
unbroken and impenetrable as in the last decade of the 
fifteenth century, when it resounded to the blare of trum- 
pets and firing of arquebuses. 

Below me lay the Saintes, a cluster of islets, seemingly 
close to the cliffs of the volcano, discovered and named by 
Columbus on All-Saints' Day, 1493. Northeast from me 
lay Desirade, the first island he sighted on that second 
voyage, and almost due south again rose dear old 



GUADELOUPE AND THE DIABLOTIN 327 

Dominica, the island of Sabbath Day, which was the next 
to greet his vision. Ere the curtains of mist drew to- 
gether and condensed into rain, which was late in the 
afternoon, I had penetrated to every accessible part of the 
crater, not only in my pursuit of old Vulcan, but in search 
of a bird which, according to tradition, used to have its 
haunts here. Its life-story begins away back in the 
seventeenth century, and was first told to the public at 
large by the jolly Pere Labat, roving priest, bon vivant 
and litterateur withal, who journeyed through the West 
Indies more than two hundred years ago. 

I have his book before me as I write : " Nouveau 
Voyage aux Isles de I'Amerique," published 1722, and 
crammed from cover to cover with interesting facts. And 
the good old Pere (whom I have always loved, though 
never have seen in the flesh), among other adventures, 
gives a detailed account of his quest for the mysterious 
Diahlotin, or '* Little Devil," a bird that lived in the cra- 
ters of the Caribbean volcanoes, and went forth only 
at night — which devil-bird I thought probably identical 
with the " Vedrigo " of Saba, or related to it, at least 
generically. That it was not does not prove anything, 
for I went in search of it, just the same, about one 
hundred and eighty years after old Labat, and in the 
same localities. 

The bird had been discovered by another priest, one 
Pere du Tertre, about 1640, and he had left such an 
enticing account of the delicacy of its flesh that Pere 
Labat must fain go also in quest of it. And he found it, 
too, and ate of its flesh, which he pronounced very fine — 
though savoring somewhat of fish — which is not to be 
wondered at, as that was its sole subsistence. 

After a toilsome journey up the sides of this very 



328 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Soufriere of Guadeloupe, Pere Labat arrived at the 
crater-brim, where the devil-birds lived. The first day 
he and his chasseurs obtained fifteen, which they killed 
and cooked on the spot. They camped over night in the 
crater, where the hunters built a frail shelter for the' 
priest; but the latter could not sleep, on account of the 
great noise made by the Diablotins, as they went out to 
sea and returned in the darkness. The next day Labat 
and his black hunters caught 150 devil-birds, and ate 
their fill before descending the volcano to the settlement 
at Basse Terre. 

My first hunt for the bird was in the island of 
Dominica, which has a mountain about 5000 feet in 
height ; but I did not find it, because, as I was told, it had 
been exterminated by the manacou, a native 'possum, 
which had sought it out in its holes and devoured its 
eggs. Neither was I successful in Guadeloupe; though I 
had hoped the bird I found in Saba, another volcanic 
island, might prove to be the veritable Diablotin. 

The bird I never saw — or, at least, never knew it if I 
saw it — was the impelling motive for many a hard climb 
up the steep sides of those Caribbean volcanoes, and in my 
search I ascended them all, from isolated Saba in the 
north to the Soufrieres of Saint Vincent and Grenada 
in the south. I passed a night one time on the brim of 
Saint Eustatia's perfect crater-cone (as already nar- 
rated) for the sole purpose of observing the nocturnal 
sounds, and if possible scenes, as I lay there wrapped in 
my blanket, with the fierce winds whistling around me. 
I thought I heard the voice of the Little Devil, in the air 
above me, and anxiously peered into the darkness, gun 
a-poise ; but no form of bird rewarded my vigil, and in 
the morning I returned empty-handed to the coast. 



CHAPTER XXI 
DOMINICA, AN ISLAND OF WONDERS 

The largest island of the Caribbees — Mentioned in the " World 
of Wonders " — Things that make Dominica fascinating — 
An island beautiful — My first glimpse of it — Its fatal gift 
— What Anthony Trollope said abovit it — How he spurred 
me to exploration — Roseau the island's capital — Former 
residents in Dominica — The foremost scientist in the Lesser 
. Antilles — Wooing Dame Nature in the woods — Zizi, my 
mountaineer guide — Iguanas, trembleurs, mountain whis- 
tlers, and humming birds — The sunset bird, which received 
my name in " hog Latin " — Anecdote of Lucy Larcom and 
Whittier — The region of the Boiling Lake — When it was 
discovered, and when first photographed — An ajoupa in the 
wilderness — Taking an old-time photograph — The petit 
sonfricre — Hot streams, cold streams, and boiling springs — 
First ghmpse of the Boiling Lake — The rent in the wall 
through which Martinique was visible — The tragedy in 
Dominica five months before the eruption of Mont Pelee — 
A night march with corpses through the forest — The guide 
who was scalded to death — Boiling eggs and yams in the 
hot springs. 

DOMINICA, largest and loftiest of the Lesser 
I Antilles, is only thirty miles in length by fifteen 
in breadth, yet contains within its confines so 
many natural attractions as to have received merited 
mention in an English publication called the " World 
of Wonders." Its wonder-in-chief is a geyser in the 
mountains known as the Boiling Lake; but the moun- 
tains themselves, with their tarns embedded in tropical 
vegetation more than two thousand feet above the sea; 

329 



330 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the cascades and waterfalls that gleam against their lofty 
walls of rock; the forest-covered monies and vine-hung 
precipices ; the Edenic vales filled with lime-trees and 
fringed with cocoa palms, and the rivers that flow through 
them and mingle their sparkling waters with the foaming 
surf on silver-sanded beaches — all these combine to make 
Dominica fascinating. 

In my mind, for many years, Dominica has been mir- 
rored, pictured, as the ideal " island beautiful," because, 
in days when I was younger, I made within its forests 
my first camp in region purely tropical. Sailing out of 
the ill-fated port of Saint Pierre, Martinique, one 
evening of a December long ago, with a fair land-breeze 
from the mountains and a smart gale drawing through 
the channel between the islands, the drogher I had taken 
passage in arrived off the southern end of Dominica at 
midnight. Then the wind died away, being cut off by 
the mountains, and for twenty hours we drifted hither 
and thither on a glassy sea. 

During those twenty hours I had ample opportunity 
to study the contours of the island, from curving shore 
to central cordillera, and to watch the changes that came 
over it as the sun dissipated the mists around its peaks 
and in its valleys. The hill summits were blue and 
purple in distance, within them a cordon of lower eleva- 
tions, guarding valleys deep and dark, with a planter's 
house here and there gleaming white, a palm-bordered 
beach curving between frowning promontories. Domin- 
ica, one writer has said, possesses the " fatal gift of 
beauty," meaning, I suppose, that she has too many 
charms to be useful; but this is not quite true. While 
her mountains are lofty, her valleys traversed by swift 
and turbulent rivers that often overflow their banks ; 



DOMINICA 331 

and while miles and miles of forest cover the hills, she 
has yet many thousand acres of level, fertile soil, much 
of which has been brought under cultivation. 

She has entered, her residents say, upon a career of 
prosperity long-delayed, but now in sight, despite her 
" fatal gift of beauty." 

Some time before I first visited Dominica I read the 
work of Anthony Trollope on the West Indies, and was 
so much impressed by something which he said could not 
be done that I straightway attempted it. 

" To my mind," he said, " Dominica, as seen from the 
sea, . is by far the most picturesque of all these islands. 
Indeed, it would be hard to beat it either in color or 
grouping. It fills one with an ardent desire to be off 
and rambling among these mountains — as if one could 
ramble through such wild bush country, or ramble at 
all with the thermometer at eighty-five degrees. But 
when one has only to think of such things, without any 
idea of doing them, neither the bushes nor the ther- 
mometer are considered." 

I not only thought of " such things " — as, for instance, 
camping out in the mountains and rambling through the 
forests — but, after living a while in the coast town of 
Roseau, just long enough to get acquainted and take my 
bearings, I hied myself to those same mountains which 
Mr. Trollope intimated were to be classed as among the 
impossibles. 

Roseau, the reader must know, is a little dead-and- 
alive town, lying along the shore at the mouth of the 
river from which it derives its name. It is exceedingly 
picturesque, but still is not overwhelmingly attractive as 
a place of residence ; though I am acquainted with some 
very worthy people who have resided there for more 



332 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

than the average span of life. All were friendly to the 
young naturalist who came to them a stranger, all assisted 
me to achieve my ambition, which was to go camping 
in the high-woods ; but particularly was I indebted to a 
young physician who had then but recently come out from 
England as assistant to Doctor Imray. He had been 
there three or four years at the time of our first meeting, 
and, except for intervals of vacation now and then, he 
has lived there ever since, or nearly thirty years in all. 
Moreover, he has pursued as active a career as most of 
his confreres in temperate climates can boast, working 
night and day at his profession and at scientific research. 
Since I shall not directly mention his name, I may say 
that he is recognized as the foremost botanist and medical 
authority in the West Indies, and that his attainments 
brought him an honorary title from the British Crown a 
few years ago. 

With that we have nothing to do, of course, except 
that it is an indication of the great work this physician 
has performed, and in an enervating tropical climate, 
that it should have attracted attention at the British 
court. His predecessor, Dr. Imray, was for many years 
a friend and correspondent of that famous botanist, Sir 
Joseph Hooker, and he has followed in his footsteps, 
having not only a perfect acquaintance with the West 
Indian flora, but a practical knowledge of tropical agri- 
culture, on which as a topic he has written an authori- 
tative work of surpassing value. 

Having started out to give little Roseau a first-class 
" character," I must not omit mention of its superlative 
situation, at the foot of a glorious morne, its government 
house, botanical gardens, and experiment station (where 
so much has been done toward improving tropical agri- 



DOMINICA 333 

culture), its librar}^ and its picturesqueness. Now let 
us hasten to the woods and mountains ; for towns are 
towns, all the world over, attractive according to the man- 
ner in which man has fitted them to their environ- 
ments ; while the hills and forests — are they not of God ? 
For the blessed privilege of living many months in 
communion with nature in her most lovable moods and 
most beautiful garbs, I have always felt grateful to my 
Creator, who directed my wandering footsteps toward this 
island of Dominica. 

Through my friend in Roseau I secured a guide to 
the mountains that formed the central system of Domin- 
ica's chain, and from one of the mountaineers, when 
arrived at the little hamlet in the forest clearing, I 
secured a cabin, where I lived for several weeks, in a 
sense isolated from my kind. This hamlet was called 
Laudat, and was at that time forest-surrounded, within 
sight of the sea, but hidden from the distant town, and 
two thousand feet above the Caribbean at its level. 
Here, let me remark, instead of rising to eighty-five 
degrees, as Mr. Trollope suggested, the thermometer 
rarely indicated more than sixty-eight or seventy. I 
know, because I had one hanging in my hut for months, 
and frequently referred to it. 

These mountaineers are colored people, bronzed as 
to complexion, and very much mixed up as to ancestry, 
in their veins the blood of three races mingling — that 
of the French, the African, and the Carib Indian. They 
speak a French patois, like all the islanders in English 
Dominica and Saint Lucia, as well as in French Mar- 
tinique and Guadeloupe. They are faithful, honest, 
untiringly zealous in serving, and as woodsmen are un- 
surpassed. The embodiment of all the servingman's vir- 



334 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

tues was old Jean Baptiste, of whom I hired the cabin, 
and who, a few years after, lost his life by venturing too 
near that devil's caldron, the Boiling Lake, Zizi, as he 
was called at home, had an overwhelming regard for the 
white man — the white man whom he could respect — who, 
he said, was next to the Bon Dieu. " White man he 
next to God; I tank ze Bon Dieu eef I can speks ze 
Eengleesh." 

To the worthy Zizi I was indebted for my first taste 
of iguana, the arboreal lizard which looks like an alligator 
with a serrated back and whip-tail. The flesh is not 
always good, but in the spring of the year, when the 
iguana comes out of its dens and feeds on grass and 
leaves of trees, it is savory, tender, white, fit for any table. 

Zizi and a small host of half-naked urchins, animated 
creatures, yellow-bronze in hue, were my guides to 
haunts of bird and beast. They showed me where the 
delicious mountain crabs and crayfish lurked, the 
quaint " trembleurs,'' or birds with quivering wings, had 
their nests; the " siffieur montagne," or mountain 
whistler, trilled its melodious songs, in organ notes ; 
and above all, where the brilliant humming-birds dis- 
ported, lighting the somber forests with their gem-like 
plumage. 

The primeval state in which this forest wilderness then 
existed may be understood when I state that I secured 
here six or eight new birds, which had never been seen 
even by naturalists' before, and among them one which 
had the reputation of being a" jombie " bird or sort of 
feathered spirit. It was also known as the soleil coucher, 
the " sunset bird," because it uttered its cry only as the 
sun went down at night. This bird, which I captured 
by the aid of my boys (who were in a state of trepida- 




The Boiling Lake of Dominica. 

From a photograph {the first ever taken) by the author, iSjJ. 



DOMINICA 335 

tion when I did it, fearing ghostly vengeance), was 
named after me, the Myiarchus Obcri, making the second 
species to whicli my name was apphed, in " hog Latin," 
by the ornithologists at Washington, when it was sent 
home to them for identification. 

The discoverer of the bird also received a valued 
tribute from a poetess whose sweet voice is nov/ hushed 
forever: Lucy Larcom, a close friend of John G. 
Whittier, and a writer of distinction. Meeting her soon 
after returning from my first voyage to the Antilles, 
and narrating to her the story of the Sunset Bird 
(doubtless with many embellishments, to suit the poet's 
fancy), ^he was captivated with the subject and wrote a 
poem about it.* Shortly after, I remember, we both rode 
over from my home to Danvers, where Mr. Whittier then 
resided most of the time, and Miss Larcom mentioned 
the theme to him. After she had concluded, the dear 
old Quaker poet fell into a revery, from which soon 
awaking he said earnestly: " Does thee know, Lucy, that 
strikes me as a good subject for a poem? " 

Miss Larcom laughed merrily as she replied, shaking 
her finger at him playfully: " Oh, you can't have that, 
for I've already written about it! " 

I fancied that Mr. Whittier looked disappointed, but 
he, too, laughed as he rejoined in the same vein: "Ah, 
Lucy, thee is always getting ahead of me! " 

But, returning to our island, after this digression into 
which I was led by reminiscence: there is still another 
reason why Dominica should be regarded as almost a 
terra incognita until within a comparatively recent 

* " The Sunset Bird of Dominica," in " Wild Roses of Cape 
Ann," Boston, 1881. 



336 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

period. It is found in the existence within its sierras 
of a gigantic geyser, which had blown out steam and 
water, rumbled and roared, in uninvaded solitude for 
ages, perhaps, undiscovered and unknown until the last 
quarter of the last century had nearly arrived. It seems 
incredible that in an island with scarce one hundred miles 
of coast line, and containing only three hundred square 
miles, there could exist not only a lake of boiling water, 
detonating frequently with loud reports, but a large area 
of volcanic activity, without any human being being 
aware of the fact through several centuries. 

Moreover, I trust I may be pardoned for remarking, 
I was the first American to look upon it, and the first 
of any nationality to take a photograph of Dominica's 
since-famous Boiling Lake. An engraving from this 
photograph was published in the London Graphic of 
April 19, 1879, the first, I believe, to appear. Through- 
out the islands (I may add) at the time I carried a " wet- 
plate " photographic outfit, by means of which I secured 
the originals of the illustrations that appeared in my 
first book, before the era of " process pictures " and di- 
rect reproductions. 

One of the Laudat people had been the first guide to 
the Boiling Lake, when it was discovered by Dr. 
Nicholls, in 1875, but it was first sought by a local 
magistrate, Mr. Edmund Watt, who was lost in the 
forest the year before, in an attempt at exploring the 
mysterious region.- Mr. Watt came near losing his life, 
and he also came near discovering the lake; but failed 
through the defection of his men, who left him alone 
in the trackless forest. Then, as one of my boys nar- 
rated to me: " M'sieu Watt he Avalk, walk, walk, pour 
.ree day; he lose hees clo's, hees pants cut off; he make 



DOMINICA . • 337 

nozing pour manger but root ; he have no knife, no 
nozing ; hees guide was town neegah ; zey was town 
neegah, sah, and leab him and loss him. Bien, he come 
to black man's ajoupa in wood, an' ze black man sink 
he jombie an' he run ; when he come back wiz some 
more men for look for jombie M'sieu Watt he make 
coople of sign — for he have loss hees voice and was not 
to spek — an' zey deescovair heem." 

It was none too soon, either, that this first seeker for 
the lake was rescued, for he was nearly gone. He had 
the pleasure the next year, however, of setting eyes on 
the phenomenon, as one of the party led by Dr. Nicholls. 

When my friend Zizi finally announced that " to-mor- 
row make weddah " for the trip to the Lake, I had been 
waiting for that same weather to " make " for quite two 
weeks ; so there was no delay in starting out. Four 
Laudat boys, two sons and two nephews of Zizi, went 
with me as guides and porters, two of them being neces- 
sary to carry the photographic outfit, consisting of dark- 
tent, chemicals, and camera. Each of them also carried 
a gun, as well as a machete at his side, and the muzzles 
of the muskets were constantly, though not intentionally, 
pointed at my head, thus adding zest to the occasion 
throughout the trip. And it was a most wonderful 
journey, consuming two days and a night, even starting, 
as we did, from the mountain hamlet well on the way to 
the lake. Plunging at once into the forest, I found 
myself in the home of magnificent tree-ferns, which is 
between fifteen hundred and three thousand feet above 
the sea. On the way up to the hamlet from Roseau one 
may see tree-ferns occasionally ; but not such rare speci- 
mens as the great forest contains. These and the moun- 
tain palms accompanied us nearly all the way, until near 



338 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the petit soufricrc, or little sulphur valley, was 
approached; as also the "mountain whistlers," gaudy 
insects, and rare types of humming-birds. It was late 
in the afternoon that we reached the soufricre region, 
where all vegetation had been blasted by the sulphur 
fumes, and the stench from sulphureted hydrogen was 
nearly overpowering. The silver coins in my pocket and 
the brass mountings of my camera were soon discolored 
to a blue-black hue by the fumes; for we were now amidst 
several sulphur streams, and clouds of vapor drifted con- 
tinually across the valley. 

Referring to my notes, I find that the heat was made 
ten-fold oppressive by the moisture-laden atmosphere. 
We descended between huge boulders and dead 
blanched trees prostrate on the ground to a stream ot 
marvelous beauty, and entered a ravine through which 
flowed other streams from above, their currents now 
mingling, hot and cold together, where the scene changed 
as if by enchantment. Everywhere plashed most mu- 
sical cascades, and from every side came pouring in 
rippling rivulets, some cold and sparkling, others boiling 
hot, with wreaths of steam above them in the air. Along 
their banks were all sorts of tropical plants, such as tree- 
ferns, wild-plantains, orchids, and air-plants, the last 
hanging in mid-air to lianes and lialines which formed a 
perfect network alongside and across the streams. On 
the sloping hillside here my boys chose a spot for a camp, 
and two of them stayed to make an ajoupa, while the 
other two went with me to the lake. 

. In the bottom of a vast bowl, with walls a hundred feet 
in height around it, I finally found the object I had 
come so far to see — the Boiling Lake of Dominica. But, 
though all other visitors had seen it in a state of violent 



DOMINICA 339 

ebullition, when I first looked upon it there was hardly 
a ripple on the surface. There was the geyser's token, 
the swelling ripple in the center; but otherwise it was 
quiescent. That was fortunate, as I viewed it, for other- 
wise I could not have taken the photograph, which I 
obtained by scrambling down the bed of a dried-up river 
and pitching my camera at the lake marge, just as the 
sun's last rays gilded the mountains and hill-crests 
beyond the crater. 

When the lake had quieted down nobody could tell, of 
course,, for visitors to the region were not frequent those 
days ; but I was the first to secure an unobstructed view 
of its surface without intervening clouds of steam, or to 
listen at the solfataras without having the ears assailed 
by violent detonations. 

Opposite the spot where I had set my camera was a 
great gap in the inclosing wall, through which the over- 
flow from the lake had generally poured forth in a tor- 
rent of sulphur water that descended to the coast. 
Through this aperture, which was about fifty feet across, 
I could look oflf, across and over verdant mountains, 
southerly to the isle of Martinique, gleaming in the mist 
and waning sunlight twenty miles away. There is situ- 
ated grim old Mont Pelee, which, in May, 1902, over- 
whelmed Saint Pierre and destroyed so many thousand 
people. During that eruption and for some time after 
it was feared that the Boiling Lake, which is a vent or 
safety-valve for the internal volcanic forces, would 
explode and devastate Martinique's sister island of 
Dominica; but on the whole it behaved very well and 
proved an agreeable disappointment. It roared and 
fretted, now and then, and when the island was envel- 
oped in smoke from neighboring Pelee and the lake sud- 



340 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

denly subsided, many of the natives feared an overflow 
to the valleys below; but nothing of the sort happened, 
and to-day (or by last accounts) the Boiling Lake pre- 
sents no new or startling feature. 

There have been victims of its insidious gases, how- 
ever — two men, one a young Englishman, Wilfred Clive, 
a descendant of the celebrated Lord Clive, and the other 
his guide. The accident happened in December, 1901, 
five months previous to the eruptions of Pelee in Mar- 
tinique and the Saint Vincent Soufriere. Mr. Clive had 
reached the lake and was setting his camera in position 
near or at the spot I had selected years before, when one 
of his two guides, who was sitting on a rock near a 
stream, was overcome by lethal gases and toppled over 
into the water. The other guide was also affected ; but 
when young Clive discovered the first in an apparently- 
dying state he immediately ' dispatched the second to 
Laudat for assistance. The insidious nature of the 
deadly gases may be inferred from the fact that Mr. 
Clive was himself stricken as he was ministering to his 
guide. He should have been on his guard; but when 
the relieving party arrived from Laudat, many hours 
after, they found both men dead, the guide propped 
against a boulder, and Mr. Clive in a recumbent position. 

The rescue party arrived that night, but the sulphu- 
reted hydrogen was so strong in the ravine where the 
corpses lay that two days passed before they could get 
them out. During two long days and terrible nights 
they maintained their grewsome death-watch on or near 
the hillside where, twenty-four years before, my boys had 
pitched my camp and built our ajonpa. Through the 
wild forests which we had traversed so light-heartedly, 
over the rough trail beneath the giant treesjamid the dense. 



DOMINICA 341 

tropic growth, the rehef party made their return inarch 
by night, Hghted by torches of gum wood, and bearing 
their ghastly burdens in hammocks between them. Years 
before a similar party had borne to Laudat poor old Zizi, 
my guide and friend, another victim of the Lake, who 
was scalded to death in its waters. 

The temperature of the water when I was there, in 
1877, was under 100 degrees ; but both previous and later 
investigators have found it nearly 200, or very near the 
boiling-point, at an elevation of two thousand feet and 
more above the sea. Within the volcanic area, the 
Soufriere region, there are many hot springs, and in one 
of them, on the morning succeeding to our night in camp, 
my guides cooked our breakfast, then spread the repast 
on the broad leaves of the wild plantain, and we feasted 
merrily (I find recorded in my journal), though half- 
strangled by the sulphur fumes. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 

Where the last of the West Indians are to be found — Caribs, 
or Cannibals, discovered by Columbus, in 1493 — My first 
acquaintance with those of Dominica — The Carib reserva- 
tion — History of the aborigines in epitome — Proofs that 
the Caribs were anthropophagi — Their defensive weapons 
— The people described by a writer of the seventeenth 
century — Their beliefs in a God and the soul — The late 
Doctor Brinton's theory of their origin — Probably derived 
from Orinoco region of South America — If we could 
summon their shades back to earth ? — Only ritual cannibals 
at the most — Why the Caribs rarely ate the Christians — 
The writer's quarters in Carib country — Madame Jo and 
her shock-headed children — A solitary life in pursuit of 
birds — Favored guest of hospitable natives — Who . had 
more virtues than vices — How I became godfather to a 
descendant of cannibals — A feast for the quondam hunter 
of birds — The responsibilities of a godfather — What Time 
had done to Madame John — Old and decrepit at forty — 
Time and rum too much for Meyong — My rediscovered 
relatives — The Carib tongue spoken only by a few old 
Indians — Where French has supplanted both Carib and 
English. 

THE last of tke aboriginal West Indians, de- 
scendants of the people found here by Colum- 
bus more 'than four hundred years ago, are to 
be found only in the islands of Dominica and Saint 
Vincent, those comparatively obscure members of the 
Antillean chain. Very few remain in the latter island, 
having been practically exterminated by the outburst 

342 



THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 343 

of the Soufriere ; but there are between two and three 
hundred in Dominica. They are the last remains of the 
Caribs, Indians discovered in 1493 ^^^ ^y Cokimbus de- 
nominated cannibals after he had found what he claimed 
was evidence of their man-eating propensities, in the 
island of Guadeloupe. 

More than a month was spent by me in the forests 
of Dominica before I ventured over to the Atlantic coast 
of the island where the Caribs lived. I had heard of 
them, and from them, for now and then some of the 
Indians made the journey across the mountains from the 
windward to the leeward coast, and in doing so always 
diverged from the trail at Laudat and passed some time 
with their friends in that hamlet. While I was photo- 
graphing the beautiful Mountain Lake, which fills with 
its pure cold water one of the four dead craters existing 
in Dominica, and is 2200 feet above the sea, I was sur- 
prised by the approach of a stalwart, buxom girl of 
twenty years or so, who swung along the trail with long 
strides, in company with an older woman. ■ 

" Look, look, M'sieu," exclaimed my assistant, point- 
ing at the girl, " that Indian, one of the Charaibes ! " 

She had just passed by us, but hearing this exclama- 
tion turned, and with a broad smile on her bronzed, 
chubby face said in patois: "Old, moi Charaibe; moi 
faim, aussi " — "Me Carib ; me hungry, also." This latter 
remark was probably intended to suggest an invitation to 
join in the repast which my boy had spread within the 
cave in the clay-bank opposite the lake and at the side 
of the trail. At any rate, the girl and her companion 
were invited, and they both returned and sat down, with- 
out any ado whatever at the lack of formal introduc- 
tions. They enjoyed immensely the sardines and pafc dc 



344 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

foic gras, the British beer and Danish butter and the 
American welcome they received, which were doubtless 
novelties in their experience, and after an hour or so 
departed with the assurance that if I would visit Carib 
country they would endeavor to requite my hospitality. 

After dispatching my collections of rare birds to the 
coast, thence to be shipped to the States by sailing vessel, 
I packed up my belongings at Laudat, and in company 
with two of my boys and two strapping girls, who car- 
ried my luggage on their heads, started for the so-called 
Carib country. There are few roads of any sort in 
Dominica at the present time, and there were none at all 
in the days I write of, the only trail being a foot-path up 
the mountains and down the vales, frequently interrupted 
by rivers and at times skirting the brinks of precipices. 
Two days it took me to perform the trip, but it might 
have been done in shorter time', perhaps, if the people by 
the way had been less inclined to hospitality. Most of 
the Indians had heard of the white man who had cut 
loose from civilization and became as one of them with 
the mountaineers, and so they were well inclined toward 
me in advance of my coming. It was with many a tarry 
by the way, and many a halt at huts of smiling natives, 
that I pursued the journey with my corps of attendants, 
all of them bearing big burdens on their heads. 

I found my resting-place at last, finally reaching the 
Carib reservation, which extends from the River Mahoe 
to the River Ecrevisse, three miles or more along the 
Atlantic coast, and away back into the mountains as 
many miles as the people chose to make their provision 
grounds. 

It has been often stated that the people of the United 
States, when our pioneers came into contact with the 



THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 345 

Indians of the frontier, took all the good lands for them- 
selves and gave the red men the remainder. How false 
this is we who have been in the Indian Territory and seen 
the accumulated wealth of the noble red men there can 
aver ; but whether this be so or not, in the Lesser Antilles 
the white men practiced this policy centuries ago. First 
the Spaniards, in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico ; 
then the French and English, in the southern or volcanic 
islands of the Lesser Antilles. 

At all events, the Indians of the Greater Antilles were 
long ago exterminated, after first being deprived of their 
lands, and only a miserable remnant of the Caribs of the 
lesser islands remains in existence to-day. 

The Caribbeans, says an author of the seventeenth 
century, are a handsome, well-shaped people, of a smil- 
ing countenance, middle stature, having broad shoulders 
and large hips, and most of them in good condition. The 
description he gives of the Caribs will apply to-day, 
for they have changed but little, except through intermix- 
ture with the negroes and colored people during the past 
200 years. Their mouths are not over large, he says, 
and their teeth are perfectly white and close. Their 
complexion is of an olive color, naturally; their fore- 
heads and noses are fiat, not naturally, but by artifice 
(that is, artificially flattened), "for their mothers crush 
them down at their birth, as also during the time they 
suckle them, imagining it a kind of beauty or perfec- 
tion." 

• " They believe in evil spirits and seek to propitiate 
them by presents of game, fruits, etc. They believe that 
they have as many souls as they feel beatings of the 
arteries in their bodies, besides the principal one which 
is in the heart and goes to heaven with its god, who 



346 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

carries it thither to live with other gods ; and they 
imagine that they Hve the same Hfe that man Hves here 
below. For they do not think the soul to be so far imma- 
terial as to be invisible, but they affirm it to be subtle and 
of thin substance, as a purified body, and they use but the 
same word to signify heart and soul." 

If we could but summon the shades of their cannibal 
ancestors before us it is probable that (shades, ghosts, 
apparitions, spooks, jombies, being supposed to tell the 
truth) they might plead guilty to having been anthro- 
pophagi ; but only in the " religious " sense. Like the 
ancient Aztecs (who, though they had sacrificed thou- 
sands of their enemies before grim Huitzilopochtli on 
their temple-pyramid and had partaken of their flesh, 
did not resort to cannibalism when pressed by famine at 
the siege of Mexico), the Caribs sometimes ate human 
flesh at their ceremonials. But it was merely a matter of 
taste, so to speak. If an enemy fought well and dis- 
played unusual valor, they saved his arms, legs, and other 
portions as tidbits, by " boucanning " them over a slow 
fire, for their religious banquets. 

Later on, after they had well-nigh exterminated the 
Arawaks of the more northern West Indies, they applied 
the same process to the invading Christians. But never 
to any great extent, because, as one of the Carib chief- 
tains is said to have naively explained : " The Spaniards 
and Frenchmen tasted of garlic, and the Englishmen 
were too strong of tobacco ! " So the Christians " saved 
their bacon " ; though they rarely saved their lives when, 
through the fortunes of war, they were taken prisoners by 
the Caribs. 

In the process of time, and through the drastic methods 
of Spanish and English " civilization," as the Caribs 



THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 347 

became decimated they lost their warHke nature, as well 
as their desire for tasting human flesh ; and when, nearly 
400 years after their discovery by white men, I found my 
way to their settlement, on the windward side of Domin- 
ica, less than 300 altogether, and hardly more than a 
dozen of pure blood, remained alive. 

As a naturalist, interested mainly in birds and inci- 
dentally in anthropology, I became domiciled in their 
midst at that time, and as the only white man resident in 
their settlement I was the recipient of overwhelming 
attention. The palm-thatched hut which they had built 
for . the priest to occupy in his semi-annual visits was 
assigned me, and the middle-aged woman who generally 
ministered to the holy man's creature comforts, by cook- 
ing the food furnished by his parishioners, was charged 
with the same duties in behalf of the white hunter from 
the United States. 

This woman, with her husband and a family of black- 
eyed, shock-headed children, occupied a little hut on a 
promontory overlooking the boisterous Atlantic, about 
a mile distant from the priest's house, which, having 
another within gunshot, was considered to be in the heart 
of the settlement. 

And yet it was lonely, as I remember, when, having 
attended to her daily duties, " Madame Jo " cleared away 
the table, fastened up the cookhouse adjacent to the hut, 
and left me alone, to listen over night to the soughing of 
the ever-blowing tradewind and the monotonous beat of 
the fierce waves upon the rocks. But I was then young, 
active, and industrious, every morning rising at day- 
break to range the forest all the forenoon for birds, after 
a sunrise dip in the river; and so busy during the after- 
noon writing up notes and preparing my " specimens," 



348 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

that soon after dusk and dinner I became oblivious to the 
solitary nature of my surroundings. 

My guide and companion was an Indian lad called 
Meyong (contraction of Simeon), who knew all the 
haunts of bird and beast on shore and in the mountain 
forests. As the smoke arose from the little shack in 
which Madame Jo prepared my morning coffee, Meyong. 
sauntered up in time to make way with the portion left 
for him, and then led me away to the scene of the day's 
investigations — it might be for iguanas and agoutis, 
among the wild guavas of a deserted plantation, or yet, 
farther afield, for wild parrots and great blue-headed 
pigeons ; but we never returned empty-handed to the hut, 
nor without having tramped for hours in the sweltering 
atmosphere of the tropics. 

Now and again we had Madame Jo put up a larger 
portion of food than usual, and then wandered for days 
and nights in the mountains, searching for the great 
" imperial " parrot (the Chrysotis augiista) and that some- 
what mythical creature, the Diablotin, or " Devil Bird." 
At such times we were accompanied by Meyong's inti- 
mate friend, Coryet, who carried the culinary implements 
and made the ajoupa in which we slept at night. And it 
was while I reclined upon the springy bed of palm leaves, 
beneath the lean-to, in the light of a fragrant fire of gum- 
wood, with pencil and note-book in hand, that my Carib 
friends repeated to me tales of the " loup-garous," or 
were-wolves, and strange Indian traditions. 

Happier days and nights have never fallen to my lot 
than those I then experienced in the " high-woods " of 
that tropical island in the Caribbean Sea. Ardent and 
enthusiastic, I entered with eagerness into the life of my 
Indian companions, hesitated at no venture they pro- 



THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 349 

posed, and endured gladly all the hardships incidental to 
that wild existence. Charmed by its romanticism, fasci- 
nated by its novelty, I possibly idealized the simple folk 
among whom I lived, and this in turn may account for 
the manner in which they served me, which almost 
verged upon actual worship. 

Aside from the fact that the Caribs felt in honor bound 
to supply the stranger in their midst with all their lands 
afforded, they liked me because I became for the time as 
good an aboriginal as any of my men, hunted and fished 
with -them, and took the keenest interest in their welfare. 
And, indeed, they were a lovable people, honest, affec- 
tionate, true to each other, and hospitable. They had 
vices, alas ! but they were those begotten of a tropical 
climate, and an imperception of moral obligations ; 
negative, not positive ; yet inimical to their well being. 

In short, they had received me as one of themselves, 
and when, just before the time arrived for my departure, 
after two months in the Carib hamlet, the husband of 
Madame Jo desired me to stand godfather for a female 
child, which she had recently presented to her liege lord, 
there could be but one answer to this request. The cere- 
mony took place in the little chapel at Saint Marie, and 
having paid the customary fee exacted from the sponsor 
for a new-born child on such an occasion, I took leave of 
the assembled Caribs, and departed for other isles, amid 
a chorus of lamentations. 

It is rarely that civilized man, however savage his fore- 
bears may have been in the distant past, suffers a recru- 
descence of barbaric proclivities, and becomes atavic. 
With most of us, the liking for a semi-civilized state of 
existence is but a phase, which we outlive, ^and which 
passes away with the bounding pulse and headstrong 



350 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ambitions of youth. And so in my case ; though I spent 
several years in seeking adventure of some sort, chiefly 
in roaming tropical forests in quest of rare birds, the time 
came when I naturally settled down to soberer pur- 
suits. 

Now and again, as time rolled on, came a word of 
greeting or a fragmentary message from my old friends 
of the forest life ; but fifteen years elapsed before the 
opportunity offered for revisiting the scenes of my early 
exploits. When it came I seized it eagerly, and with 
what emotions I once more gazed upon familiar scenes 
of that long-past period, when I had roamed the woods 
and gleaned the streams for prey, may perhaps be imag- 
ined. My first disagreeable shock was experienced at 
the mountain hamlet where I had made my first camp, 
when I was told that my good old guide, Zizi, had been 
scalded to death in the Boiling- Lake. 

I also learned, at this hamlet of Laudat on the Carib- 
bean side of the island, that the residents of the " Carib 
country," or the windward side, had heard of my arrival 
and had planned a royal reception for " M'sieu Fred," 
the quondam hunter of birds. At the same time I was 
reminded of the responsibilities I had once assumed in 
standing sponsor for Madame Jo's child, by a letter from 
my commere, which also told me that her prsenomen was 
not " Jo " at all, but Marie Antoinette. At all events, 
she was, and always would be, my " commere/' or god- 
mother, and equally I was, and always would continue to 
be, whether I liked it or not, her compere. 

After a two days' journey on horseback, over the 
mountain backbone of Dominica and down its windward 
coast, I at last reached the vale of. Saint Marie, its beauti- 
ful prospect before me and the sounding sea in my ears. 



THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 351 

The little hamlet of three huts seemed as lone and world- 
forsaken as when I had left it fifteen years before. As ' 
I forded the stream that ran in front of the hut out burst 
a little old Carib woman, faded and wrinkled. The name 
she gave me, "Madame John," brought no trace of recol- 
lection, but when she added : " I used to tell you old 
Indian words, 'member?" I recalled then Evangelina, the 
pretty maiden who could speak both French and English 
and who assisted me in making a Carib vocabulary. But 
she was such a shapely, graceful girl ; and this woman — 
why, she was already old, decrepit ! 

And then Meyong, who came limping down the path 
from his hut to meet me ; Meyong, who was a frisky boy 
when he led me to the haunts of pigeon and parrot, was 
now the staid and sober head of a family containing seven 
" olive branches." It was high time, his neighbors told me, 
for if he had not developed a desire for rum distilled from 
sugar-cane he would not have lost all the toes of one foot, 
which he had inadvertently chopped off while under the 
influence of drink. 

These two, Madame John and Meyong, had scarcely 
installed me in the priest's house, with its two diminutive 
rooms and roof of thatch, before I was greeted by my 
commere, w^ho had walked two miles in the blazing sun 
to meet me. 

"At last ! at last !" she exclaimed, falling upon my neck 
and weeping tears of joy. Then, having plentifully be- 
dewed my shoulders, she pointed to a comely maiden 
standing near and said: " Look, Compe, look you god- 
child ! Come, child, come kiss your dear godpapa, who 
come such long, long way to see you." 

The maiden shyly advanced, and, after imprinting a 
chaste salute on my cheek, placed her little brown fingers 



352 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

nervously in mine, the while regarding me with frank, 
wide-open eyes. 

And this was my Carib godchild, whom I had not seen 
for fifteen years; this pretty, bronze-tinted girl, with 
great black eyes, red rounded cheeks, and supple figure 
already with the promise of womanhood. Old Time, the 
indefatigable, had labored hard since I had left this ham- 
let, though but for these human documents I, myself, 
should hardly have known the years had passed. 

And as if to support the illusion, there came Evan- 
gelina's sister, the very image of what Evangelina was 
when I used to know her — sweet seventeen, with arched 
pouting lips, merry eyes, lissome shape in gaudy calico, 
ready to sing for me and to tell me the Indian traditions. 
When I went next morning down to the river that flowed 
into the sea, to the wave-worn hollow in the great black 
rock, erstwhile my favorite bathing place, a half-nude 
Indian boy, a miniature of Meyong in golden bronze, fol- 
lowed after with a towel and sat while I bathed, as his 
father used to do on similar occasions in the years agone. 

The great waves still sang in a fierce monotone, the 
scurrying trade winds tore through the palm groves, lash- 
ing the dead leaves against the trunks ; the gilt-crested 
humming birds still built their cup-shaped nests in the 
rose apples and flitted among the banana plants. All 
, these things were as of yesterday ; but there was the god- 
child grown almost to maturity, the wrinkled mother, the 
decrepit father; and of the old Caribs, who alone could 
speak the ancient language, not ten remained. 

The Caribs have forgotten their original tongue, and 
in the island patois may be said to have a form of speech 
not recognized by the schools of Europe or America. 
Thus, as my protegee is one of these, I may claim the 



THE LAST OF THE WEST INDIANS 353 

unique honor not only of being godfather to a descendant 
of cannibals, but of one who cannot understand, or con- 
verse in, my own language, and whose speech is but little 
used outside the island in which she was born. 

An occurrence in August, 1904, by which the British 
Government took possession of Aves Island, which lies 
about 127 miles to the westward of Dominica, in the 
Caribbean Sea, brings to mind an entry I made in the 
journal of my first camp in the latter island, away back 
in 1878. There are times, I wrote, when the sea does 
not rise up to meet the sky, but spreads out for miles and 
miles,' until I almost fancy I can see to Aves — that soli- 
tary islet far west in the Caribeean Sea, where a colony 
of birds breeds on the sands. 

Aves was rarely visited, except one had the misfortune 
to be wrecked there, and save by the infrequent fisher- 
men and turtle-catchers ; but it figures in Froude's " Eng- 
lish in the West Indies," as well as in old Pere Labat's 
" Voyages." The good old " Father " was once, in fact, 
ashore there with a French buccaneer, who captured an 
English cruiser, after a brisk fight, previous to which the 
bellicose " Pere Blanc " had bestowed his blessing upon 
him and his crew. 

Canon Kingsley has a song referring to Aves, called the 
" The Lay of the Last Buccaneer," which may have been 
suggested by this incident, of which the second stanza is : 

" There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, 
All furnished well with small-arms and cannon all about; 
And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free 
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MARTINIQUE AND MONTAGNE PELEE 

Windward approach to Martinique — How the mass of Pelee 
dominates the island — Flying-fish, cascades, and sand- 
beaches — The city of Saint Pierre from the sea — Its houses, 
streets, and people, years ago — Running streams in the 
streets, and babies in the gutters — Bizarre dresses of the 
Creole women, and their profusion of jewelry. — The light- 
hearted population — The fer de lance, or yellow serpent — 
Morne Rouge as the writer saw it when hunting birds in 
Martinique — Riviere Roxelane and the laundresses — Mon- 
tague Pelee viewed from the seaport — Climate and scenery 
of lotus land — Brief mention of the island's history — Creole 
patois and characteristics — The " empire gown " of Jose- 
phine's time — Birthplace and haunts of Napoleon's first 
wife — Present society contrasted with that oi the past — 
The catastrophe that desolated Martinique — Saint Pierre 
overwhelmed and destroyed — The sole survivor — Aggregate 
loss of life in the island — Neither saints nor prayers availed 
— Saint Lucia, southward from Martinique — The harbor of 
Castries — Features of the island and its history — A sickly 
place and one to be shunned — Great fortifications erected 
here — Diamond Rock, which was once rated and held as a 
war-ship — Battles that have taken place in Saint Lucia — 
The island's inferno, and the picturesque Pitons. 

WHILE my reminiscences of Martinique, the 
island, next south in the Caribbean chain, 
are quite as pleasurable as those of Dominica, 
yet they are clouded over by the horrors of that cataclys- 
mal catastrophe, the eruption of Pelee, and seem unreal, 
weird, as though of a world and people that have passed 

354 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 355 

away. Viewed in retrospect, as through the telescope 
inverted, I see the island now as I approached it from the 
Atlantic side, coming down from the Bermudas, where 
our vessel had been wrecked and detained a month. 

My first view is a long time to look back upon ; but no 
one who has seen the north end of Martinique, with the 
black, frowning mass of Montague Pelee rising from the 
sea, its base wreathed in tropical vegetation, its denuded 
peak peering through evanescent clouds rolled up from' 
the ocean by the ever-blowing " trades," can forget the 
picture. 

Pelee, in fact, is the dominant feature in that picture, 
rising as it does above a congeries of minor mountains, its 
four thousand five hundred feet altitude giving it prom- 
inence. Referring to my notes of that time, I find it 
alluded to as an extinct, at all events quiescent, volcano, 
whose last sporadic eruption, when it threw out smoke 
and ashes only, occurred thirty years before. Approach- 
ing the island from the Atlantic, the " windward " side, 
the volcano appeared as a mass of dark-green with a 
serried outline, cleft into ravines and black gorges 
through which ran swift-flowing rivers by the score, 
gushing from internal fountains and seeking the sea be- 
neath tall cocoa palms. 

Rounding the northern end of the island, of which 
Pelee is the outpost, we sailed from the rough waters of 
the Atlantic into the smoother seas of the Caribbean, the 
hills and mountains at once affording a lee, and the beau- 
tiful flying-fish, hundreds of which had skimmed, the 
crests of the Atlantic waves, now disporting by thou- 
sands. The great basaltic clififs, which towered above 
crescentic, palm-bordered beaches of golden sands, cut 
off the breeze, and our sailing vessel scarce had wind 



356 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

enough left to make the roadstead of Martinique's com- 
mercial port, Saint Pierre. The " trades " still blew, 
however, strong and moisture-laden from the windward 
coast, as evidenced by the pattering showers educed by 
condensation against the mountain-sides, and a glorious 
rainbow spanned Saint Pierre's mile-long bay from north- 
ern to southern headland, bathing the picturesque city, 
tier upon tier of tinted houses topped with ferruginous 
tiles, in a golden mist. 

It may be owing to the fact that Saint Pierre was the 
first tropical city I had ever seen that it appeared to me 
the most fascinating; but of a truth it possessed many 
quaint charms all its own. It occupied a narrow belt of 
shore between high, clifif-like hills and the strand, its 
stone-walled houses, white, red, yellow, terra-cotta, 
solidly embanked along the shore and, higher up, scat- 
tered in picturesque confusion among clumps of tam- 
arind and mango trees, with here and there tall palms 
waving their fronds aloft. It very much resembled the 
city of Algiers, minus' the mosques and the Kasba, but 
plus the palms. Algiers, as I saw it first, beneath a full- 
orbed moon, impressed me as the most beautiful city I 
had ever looked upon, but I think that if Saint Pierre had 
not been so closely compressed between the encroaching 
hills and the sea it could well have vied with the African 
city. Still, nothing could compensate for the loss of that 
magnificent wall of living green which served as the 
background for Saint Pierre's architecture. 

I cannot but admit that the city was disappointing at 
close view, for most of the buildings were quite tropically, 
disregardful of appearance, being without windows, sans 
chimneys, of course, and made of conglomerate materials. 
Nature had done much — in fact, everything — for the 




Sago Palms, Hardin des Plantes. 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 357 

commercial entrepot of Martinique ; man had made a few 
feeble attempts at adornment. The streets were narrow, 
save along the sea-front, where there was a broad quay 
paved with basaltic blocks. The harbor — or, rather, the 
roadstead, for it lies wide open to the sea — is deep enough 
to have been the crater of old Pelee itself, all approaching 
vessels having to run out an anchor at a short distance 
from the land and then moor by a hawser ashore. There 
they lay, their noses pointed seaward, lazily floating upon 
the placid bosom of the Caribbean, with water just out- 
side their berths a hundred fathoms deep. 

This depth of water is not a peculiarity of Saint 
Pierre's roadstead, however, for it is found off Roseau, 
in the island of Dominica, next adjacent north, off Kings- 
town in Saint Vincent, and especially in the harbor 
of Saint Georges, Grenada, which is indubitably an old 
crater invaded and filled by the sea. 

Having visited Saint Pierre several times since my first 
arrival there, and having retained the impression that it 
was a beautiful, though not exactly an attractive, city for 
residence, I think this must be correct. It is said that old 
Montague Pelee probably blew its own head ofif, through 
the generation of steam from water that had percolated 
through its crater-sides. Well, this may be a correct as- 
sumption, for certes there is water enough in the island 
— or there was — and to spare. The atmosphere is ever 
moisture-laden, streams and rivulets run everywhere and 
in all directions, descending from the central mountain 
masses. The strongest feature in Saint Pierre was the 
abundance of water, running through side channels in its 
streets at right angles to the quay, overflowing in numer- 
ous fountains and oozing out above the city. 

In the beautiful Jar din des Plant es adjacent to the city 



358 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

a glorious cascade dropped over cliffs into a basin bor- 
dered with palms and tree ferns. But for the water, in 
fact, the city would hardly have been very desirable to 
live in ; for, as it was, the odors at times were very nearly 
overpowering, especially in the wee sma' hours, when the 
domestics threw open the portals of their respective 
domiciles and bore forth the garbage, which they dumped 
in the streams flowing through the gutters. They ap- 
peared only at appointed hours, the city being as well regu- 
lated as any of its prototypes in France; but when they 
made their exit all the sailor folk in the harbor knew of it, 
from the noisome odors exhaled. Later on, about art 
hour after daybreak, the breakfast dishes were often 
washed in the clear water running past the trottoirs; still 
later, most attractive babies, variously colored, from ebon 
and chocolate to cafe au lait and old gold, but all happy 
as the morn and shrieking from overplus of joy. Should 
breakfast-dish or baby be released but for a second, down 
the steep incline it would glide, to be recovered, if at all, 
only at the shore. 

The public buildings of Saint Pierre — such as the 
theater, the cathedral, bishop's palace, the great barracks 
for the troops — were all massive structures and in good 
taste. The magasins, filled with European products, were 
sufficiently numerous, and the city was well equipped with 
all the fittings demanded by an ambitious metropolis of 
the twentieth century. 

The greater portion of Martinique's inhabitants are 
black or colored, the African-derived element being 
vastly in preponderance and increasing year by year. 
The female colored Creoles of Martinique, particularly 
of Saint Pierre, were celebrated for their quaint and bi- 
zarre costumes — flowing robes of silk or' calico, always 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 359 

loose and open and of the brightest colors. The dress 
most affected by the domestics, hucksters, and even by 
women of the better class, was designed especially for a 
tropical climate and cut with the waistband well up under 
the shoulder-blades. It was locally known as the " cos- 
tume de Josephine," after a tradition that this famous 
daughter of Martinique adopted it for negligee in the 
seclusion of La Pagerie. 

A love for bright colors and profusion of jewelry is 
characteristic of the Creole, quadroon, and octoroon, even 
the '• Sambo " negress being very particular as to her 
turban, which must be fashioned of the gaudiest ban- 
dannas and ornamented to the extent of her means. She 
must have coils of beads, gold brooches and pins, and ear- 
rings, consisting of golden fasces as big as a baby's 
fist. 

Many of the mixed peoples were handsome withal, and 
some of the girls who come over from the farther side of 
the mountain, doing their twenty or thirty miles to market 
and home again every day, were models of symmetry. I 
used to see them swinging over the country roads with 
long, easy strides, immense loads of produce, such as 
bananas, plantains, tanias, piled high upon their heads, 
their forms erect as lances and their torsos such as might 
have excited the envy of a sculptor. These people, and 
in truth all, were contented and happy, prone to laughter, 
filled to overflowing with an unfailing bonhomie. As I 
recall in memory these mountain maidens that used to 
come to town from the windward coast with their bur- 
dens of produce, I see their supple forms swaying, their 
bright eyes and white teeth gleaming, and hear again the 
ripples of musical laughter and their cheerful " Bgn 
jours" and ''Bon soirs" floating on the morning or 



36o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

evening air. They were the brightest of the Martinicans, 
truly sui generis, and it seemed to me that in them the 
country and the cHmate had found a perfect type, as 
suited to the tropics as the mango or the pomegranate. 

As I was hunting birds those days, my first voyage to 
the Lesser Antilles having been in the pursuit of ornithol- 
ogy, I was always more in the country districts than in 
the city, and so became acquainted with the simple, joy- 
ous country folk. They were always willing to assist 
me, and frequently a man cutting cane in a field would 
stop his work to show me the haunts of some bird or 
reptile, or one of the mountain maidens would lay down 
her heavy load to point out a humming-bird or to warn 
me of the serpent's lurking-place. 

It was the " serpent " of Martinique, and the serpent 
only, that the natives feared. They gave no heed to 
Mont Pelee, believing it harmless ; but they were ever on 
the alert as regards the " fer de lance," that most veno- 
mous of American serpents, which makes its particular 
habitat in Martinique and the near island of Saint Lucia. 
It was their one haunting fear, by day and by night, for 
its bite meant death. The serpent itself was so numerous 
as to invade the houses even of Saint Pierre, and so ag- 
gressively venomous as to seek out its victims — in this 
respect being different from all others of its family. 

When hunting in the Jardin des Plantes, which was 
practically within the city limits, and one of nature's 
beauty spots — with its tall " palmistes," its cascades, its 
artificial lakes with every variety of tropical foliage 
mirrored in them — I was always accompanied by an at- 
tendant sent especially to warn me when in the vicinage 
of the dreaded " lancehead." In one of my journeyings 
I made my headquarters at the little village of Morne 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 361 

Rouge, from which I went out on hunting excursions 
every morning soon after daybreak. I ranged over the 
hills, such as Morne Calabasse and Morne Balisier, even 
up and over the slopes of great Mont Pelee, without see- 
ing any serpents, though having several " close calls," 
my native attendant told me. 

The name " morne " is applied throughout the French 
West Indies to the high hills and low mountains, but not 
to the greatest elevations ; so there are many " mornes " 
in Martinique, but only one " montagne," that of Pelee, 
which is further distinguished now from having caused 
the greatest catastrophe within a century. This mountain 
was the focal point of all views at the north end of the 
island, visible all the way from Saint Pierre to Morne 
Rouge — as one crossed the Riviere Roxelane, where 
toiled half-naked washerwomen laundering their 
" washes " with clubs ; across the savane, the level field 
where military reviews were wont to be held ; through 
vast cane fields and among luxuriant gardens — ever in 
view was the Montagne, sweeping grandly up from sea 
to cloudland, 

I used to watch it, together with some of the few 
white French people of Saint Pierre, sitting in the Jardin 
or on a bench beneath the mango trees not far from the 
Grande Rue. Twenty-five years ago the white popula- 
tion of the island was relatively numerous ; ten years ago 
I found it lamentably shrunken, and now it must be prac- 
tically extinguished. First the black flood having its 
origin in Africa, then the lava flood from the heart of 
Pelee, swept the land ; now those French-born people, 
some of them of lofty lineage, are almost extinct. 

Not a few travelers have asserted that the island of 
Martinique, when at its best, came as near to realizing the 



362 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ideal paradise on earth, so far as climate and sceriery 
could make it, as any portion of this mundane sphere. 

The popular conception of an earthly paradise is always 
a tropical one. Eden, the country of the blest, has a 
climate of perpetual summer, where snow and ice are un- 
known, except in refreshing confections and beverages; 
where stately palms wave their golden fronds in an at- 
mosphere of eternal calm, and verdure-clad mountains 
raise their sun-kissed peaks to an azure sky in a land that 
is " always afternoon." 

That was the lotus land of Martinique, as the casual 
visitor saw it. Situated midway in the volcanic chain of 
the Caribbees, and about half way between the equator 
and the northern tropic, it was one of the Titanic step- 
ping stones that connect the temperate North with the 
tropical South. It possessed all the qualifications for the 
traditional earthly paradise. Climate and scenery were 
unsurpassed ; it had noble palms in ranks and groves, 
o'ertopping silver-sanded beaches laved by sapphire-tinted 
waves ; and, to complete the Edenic simile, it had its ser- 
pent. No other fragment of a continent, torn from its 
parent land and set adrift in mid-sea, can boast such a 
venomous, pestiferous serpent as the terrible fer de lance, 
or yellow viper, of Martinique. 

In the last decade of the fifteenth and the first of the 
sixteenth century, Spain discovered more lands than she 
could very well populate, and many small islands, partic- 
ularly of the Caribbees, were left in solitude, unvisited 
for many years, some of them finally falling into the 
hands of French or English, Danes or Dutch. France 
happened to appropriate this beautiful island, and the 
numerous river valleys being filled with fertile soil, the 
French colonists prospered exceedingly. ' So great was 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 363 

their prosperity, in fact, that it attracted the attention of 
English adventurers, who coveted and intended to own 
the riches of the Antilles. 

From the days of Drake and Hawkins to those of Rod- 
ney and Bonaparte, both France and England povired out 
unstinted gore and millions of treasure in the taking and 
re-taking of the insignificant Caribbees. Martinique, as 
well as some others, passed like a shuttle-cock from one 
owner to another, and, as the eventual outcome of the pro- 
tracted conflict, France now possesses five or six islands 
of the chain, and Great Britain nearly all the rest. 

Still, in one sense, as already intimated, the French 
have triumphed over their erstwhile foes, for, though they 
can show fewer terrestrial possessions in the Lesser 
Antilles, their speech has been so strongly impressed upon 
several of the islands, from which the British ousted 
them- in centuries past, that the language of the common 
people is almost universally a French patois. 

As the people of Martinique have a dialect of their own, 
so also their appearance is distinctive. French Creoles, 
especially those of the mixed caste, are famous for their 
beauty, and in Martinique they seem well nigh to reach 
perfection. There is, or was, a subtle alchemy, either in 
the air or in their strain of blood, that gave them a birth- 
right of physical charm. Whatever the cause, the island 
had good reason to be proud of its beautiful octoroons 
and quadroons, known generally as metis, with the purple 
sheen of their long, abundant tresses and their deep, 
searching, melancholy eyes. 

The most beautiful types were to be found in the coun- 
try interior — in the very district that has been devastated 
by the eruption of Pelee ; but they were often seen in St. 
Pierre, the city destroyed on the fatal 8th of May, 



364 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

1902. Tall, straight as palms, yet with a languorous 
elasticity of movement and a graciousness of manner 
peculiarly their own, the native women of Martinique 
were a very fascinating quantity in the personal equation 
of the island. 

It is possible that their attractiveness was enhanced by 
the costume they wore — else, in truth, why should they 
have adopted it? The distinctive style in Martinique had 
as its most marked feature a loosely flowing robe, high 
waisted and short armed. It was, as someone has said, 
the original conception of the "empire gown"; but its' 
fabric disported the most startling colors ever conceived 
by art, the effect of which was generally accentuated by 
a gorgeous bandanna turban. 

No less interesting, though not. quite so picturesque, 
were the white Creoles native born in Martinique. The 
white women were not so much in evidence as the others, 
save at the band concerts on the savane, at church, or at 
an occasional ball ; but to one who, like the writer of this 
chapter, knew many of them in their homes, their gra- 
cious charm is a memory most precious. The Martini- 
cans were pleasure and laughter-loving, light-hearted, 
hospitable in the French way ; mindful of the aristocratic 
ancestry some few of them could boast ; and, whether 
black or white, jealous of their island's traditions. 

Perhaps no one life can so well exemplify the peculiar 
fascination of Martinique's fair daughters, and at the 
same time present, as in epitome, the vicissitudes of the 
French colonists' fortunes, as that of the Empress 
Josephine, first wife of the great Napoleon. Everyone 
knows that she was a native of Martinique ; that, like 
Napoleon, she was island born, and a creole in the true 
sense of the word. Her grandfather, M. Tascher de la 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 365 

Pagerie, had come to Martinique in 1726. He settled in 
the island as a planter ; but that he was a personage of 
rank was shown by his application, in 1730, for the regis- 
tration of his letters of nobility. His eldest son, Joseph, 
in 1 76 1, married Mile. Rose Claire des Vergers de San- 
nois, to whose beautiful sugar estate the couple retired 
soon after the marriage. 

Standing in the midst of the savane at Fort de France, 
the capital of Martinique, and at present its largest cen- 
ter of population, is an exquisitely carved statue of pure 
white marble, representing the Empress Josephine in her 
prime, when she was the wife of Napoleon. It has stooc^ 
there more than thirty years, or ever since it was pre- 
sented to the people of Martinique by her grandson, 
Napoleon III. The statue fronts the entrance to the har- 
bor of Fort de France, but the face of Josephine is turned 
aside, her wistful gaze being directed towards a low 
range of hills across the bay, about five miles away, be- 
hind which nestles the valley in which she was born. 
There lay the estate of Sannois, to which Lieutenant 
Tascher de la Pagerie took his bride, and where his 
daughter, Josephine, first saw the light, on the 23d of 
June, 1763. 

A typical Creole, Josephine was lithe of limb and deli- 
cate of figure, with the perfect grace and, freedom of 
movement that comes from an outdoor life and an in- 
fancy innocent of the restraints of the conventional garb 
of civilization. From childhood she possessed a surpris- 
ing winsomeness that fascinated men and made women 
jealous or suspicious. Her early years were not without 
hardship. She was only three when a great hurricane 
swept over Martinique, destroying much property and 
many hves. The " great house " of the Tascher estate 



366 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

was razed to the ground, and the whole family fled to the 
case a I'ciif, or hurricane cellar, from which they emerged, 
after the storm was over, to find every structure but the 
sugar mill without a roof. Discouraged at the prospect 
of rebuilding his dwelling in a land of hurricanes, M. 
Tascher took up his residence in the sucrcric, or sugar 
house, and in the upper room of this massive and pic- 
turesque building the future empress, Josephine, lived 
during nearly a decade of her youth. Later she passed 
a few years in Fort de France, mainly at a convent 
school, and as the guest of an aunt. At fifteen she went 
,to France to become the bride of Beauharnais, and after- 
wards the consort of Napoleon. 

Thus sails be3'ond our ken the most fascinating daugh- 
ter of Martinique, and the best known in history. She 
found fame as well as fortune — good and ill — in the 
home of her ancestors ; but she often turned towards the 
island of her birth as the scene of her happiest days. 

At the time of the English attack upon Martinique, in 
1762, there existed in the island a society which could 
boast connection with the highest and the best of La 
Belle France, for many of the colonists, like Beauharnais 
and La Pagerie, were noble by birth. And, so late as the 
second empire even, the island was noted for its aristo- 
cratic colonists and numerous settlers of good lineage. 
But within the last forty years the white population has 
steadily dwindled — as, indeed, it has in all the islands of 
the West Indies — and ,to-day only the scant remains of 
the past attest to what made the French possessions great 
and prosperous. The French islands were more carefully 
nursed than the British, and have been made to yield 
more; but now that the volcano has destroyed Saint 
Pierre, with its beautiful Jardin dcs Plantcs, its museum, 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 367 

cathedral, seminaries, schools — its centers of culture and 
education — poor Martinique has fallen far to the rear. 

It was on the morning of May 8, 1902, that the catas- 
trophe occurred in Martinique, almost inconceivable in its 
magnitude, and more disastrous than any similar the 
Western Hemisphere has known. Mont Pelee had been 
wearing its " smoke cap " for several weeks, but the in- 
habitants of the north end of the island attributed the 
phenomenon to the volcano's vagaries, and paid little at- 
tention to the matter. At last, however, on the 5th of 
May, there was a tremendous eruption, by which vast 
volumes of mud were thrown far up into the air, and a 
sugar factory overwhelmed, with a loss of one hunderd 
and fifty lives. 

The people of Saint Pierre were moved from their 
apathy to send a commission of investigation, composed 
of local scientists, who returned from the district of dis- 
turbance and reported the worst as over. They had 
hardly made this report, however, than there was a recur- 
rence of the strange tremors of the earth, caused, prob- 
ably, by jets of steam from internal sources being forced 
through the crust or crevices in the rock. There were- 
warnings in plenty, but they passed unheeded ; for, had 
not the " volcan " stood there, within plain sight of Saint 
Pierre, as long as man could remember ? 

Pelee had blustered and sent out incipient eruptions 
fifty years before, but nothing serious had resulted from 
the demonstrations, so when at last the showers of ashes, 
which had been falling continuously, though lightly, for 
days past became so dense that the sun, on" the morning 
of that fatal 8th of May, was hidden from -sight, even 
then the people were not universally alarmed. 

Suddenly, however, out of the darkness came a terrific 



368 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS . 

detonation, as if the plutonic forces enchained within the 
volcano had loosed themselves at last and torn the, 
mountain from its base. The terrified inhabitants of 
Saint Pierre had hardly time to exclaim : " Pelee has 
blown his head into the sky !" when the doomed city was 
overwhelmed by a veritable cloud of fire, accompanied 
by molten rock, poisonous gases, incandescent sand and 
scorige. The hot blast consumed the people ere they 
could escape, and the fiery cinders covered the entire area 
of the city with a pall of desolation. Within the space' 
of thirty seconds more than thirty thousand people were 
wiped out of existence utterly, sixteen out of the eighteen 
vessels in the roadstead were either sttnk at their moorings 
or consumed by fire, together with everybody on board, 
and property to the value of one hundred million dollars 
was destroyed. 

In addition to the city of Saint Pierre and its suburbs, 
six other centers of population were then and later de- 
stroyed, including the beautiful hill-town, -Morne Rouge 
the total aggregate of lives lost being not less than fifty 
thousand. 

The obliterated towns were scattered chiefly along the 
northern and northwest coast, and contained all the way 
from two thousand to eight thousand inhabitants each. 
The capital city of Martinique, Fort de France, on the 
leeward coast, about twelve miles southeast of Saint 
Pierre in an air-line, lay beyond the area of devastation, 
and towards this city the various relief expeditions were 
sent, the United States generously leading, for the suc- 
cor of the terror- and famine-stricken refugees. Rescue 
parties, were sent from Fort de France to Saiiit-Pierre as 
soon as they could endure the terrible heat emanating 
from the cinder-buried citv, and their worst fears were 



;/ 




•ao 



^ 



13 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 3C9 

more than realized. A few wretched survivors were 
snatched from the shore immediately after the eruption, 
most of whom died ; but the only actual' survivor rescued 
from the city itself was that miserable negro found in a 
dungeon, who afterward came to the. United States and 
was exhibited in the dime museums. 

Mounds of ashes and calcined rocks, mud-plastered 
walls and blasted trees, hideous as caricatures of nature's 
one-time beautiful productions, together with windrows 
and heaps of contorted corpses, met the gaze of the awe- 
stricken explorers amid the ruins of Saint Pierre. Na- 
ture has since clothed some of the trees in verdure, and 
brightened the ghastly gray and formless masses with 
flowers ; but Saint Pierre will ever remain a dead and 
buried city. Never more will its streets be gay with 
laughter-loving Creoles, or resound to mirth of any sort ; 
for the tragedy was too vast, too terrible, for even light- 
some natives to forget. 

One might have expected to hear of accompanying 
volcanic disturbances either in Dominica, to the north of 
Martinique, or in Saint Lucia, next adjacent, to the south ; 
but the first rumblings were heard from the subterranean 
recesses of Saint Vincent's " Soufriere," about one hun- 
dred miles, as the crow flies, southward from Martinique. 
Between the two islands lies Saint Lucia, which is as 
exact a duplicate of its northern neighbor in scenery, gen- 
eral physical formation (and also in the habits and speech 
of its people) as can be imagined. Only this feature Mar- 
tinique and Saint Vincent have in common : that each 
island's volcano is near its northern coast ; while Saint 
Lucia's soufriere, or sulphur mine, as it is locally called, is 
at the south, near its wonderful " Pitons," or pointed 
mountains. 



370 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Like all the other islands of the Caribbees, Saint Lucia 
consists of a mountain mass, volcanic in its origin, 
thrown up abruptly from the sea. This congeries of hills 
and mountains is covered with the beautiful vegetation 
peculiar to the tropics, with palms and plantains, banana 
and sugar-cane along the coast, tree-ferns and a 
wilderness of gigantic trees in the hills. Although the 
island is little more than twenty miles in length, with a 
breadth of about ten, yet it contains many wonders, not 
alone of vegetable growth, but in its physical features as 
well. 

The mountains rise to various heights, some of them 
3000 feet above the sea, while deep valleys indent the 
coast, containing lands of exceeding fertility. Numer- 
ous bays, with beaches of yellow sand, lie embosomed 
among the black, basaltic cliffs, and here are the small 
villages, that are sprinkled around the bases of the 
hills. 

The extreme fertility of Saint Lucia is the bane of the 
planter, as well as his source of revenue ; for the island 
is afflicted with terrible endemic fevers, arising from the 
rich, deep soil and its decaying growth of vegetation. 
Ever since its discovery, or say for 400 years. Saint Lucia 
has been a scourge to the settler and soldier. 

Thousands of brave men have left their bones in this 
rich soil, and have drenched almost every hillside on the 
northern shore with their blood. For, not only the native 
fevers have decimated the garrisons during the centuries 
this island has been in European possession, but they 
have been subjects of attack from other foes. For 
nearly two hundred years Saint Lucia was a bone of 
contention between England and France. First one 
power and then the other would prevail, until at last, in 



MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 371 

the early part of this century, it was finally taken from 
the French by Sir Samuel Hood, and has remained in 
British hands ever since. 

Its history is that of nearly every island in the Carib- 
bean Archipelago, except Barbados, for there is not one 
of them that has not cost a hundred times its value 
in blood and treasure. Although a long time in British 
possession, yet it is only within a few years that Great 
Britain has done anything to make this strong position 
an impregnable one. 

All these volcanic islands have, owing to their sheer, 
abrupt mountain walls, running directly down into the 
sea, deep water right up to their shores. Now and then, 
as in the case of Saint Lucia and Grenada, there are deep, 
fiord-like fissures running up into the land, forming ex- 
cellent harbors. We may safely say that there is not, 
anywhere in the West Indies, a better harbor than that 
of Castries, on the northern coast of Saint Lucia. It is a 
mile or so in depth, by a quarter of a mile in width, and is 
completely sheltered and land-locked. 

It was into the harbor . of Castries that the crippled 
" Roddam," the only vessel that escaped from Saint 
Pierre's harbor on that dreadful day in May, 1902, came 
steaming slowly, courageous Captain Freeman holding 
the helm with burned and blistered hands. He and his 
men went into hospital, and from the ship were taken 
120 tons of ashes, showing the effects of that " cloud of 
fire " which enveloped and nearly destroyed it. Here is 
his story : "A burning mass thrown up by the volcano 
struck my steamer broadside on. The shock was so ter- 
rible that it nearly capsized the vessel, big as she is. On 
hearing the awful explosion that had preceded the shock 
to ourselves, and seeing what looked like a great wall of 



372 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

llame rapidly approaching us from the volcano, all of us 
on board sought shelter wherever it was possible to get 
away from the terrible hail which then began to fall 
around us. I myself ran into the chart-room, but the 
burning embers were borne so swiftly upon us that they 
swept in through the door, almost suffocating me and 
scorching me very badly. I managed to reach the deck, 
where I mustered a few survivors and ordered them to 
slip the cables. While this was being done I leaped upon 
t^'^ bridge, and instantly we were clear I rang to the en- 
gmeer for full speed astern. The second and third 
engineers as well as the firemen had escaped injury. 
They bravely did their part at this awful time, but the 
downpour on the deck was so terrible that the men could 
not work there. The steering gear became choked by a 
mass of debris that had fallen on the ship and clogged 
up every part of her. Accordingly, after running for 
some time astern, I rang again and went ahead, and con- 
tinued this until the gear was cleared from the ashes and 
dust that seemed to block everything." 

Seven hours later the " Roddam " entered Castries. 

At the head of the harbor is the principal town of the 
island — Castries — composed of some good public build- 
ings, a few hundred shabby dwellings, and a public 
square and botanical gardens. The water is so deep that 
the largest ships can steam directly up to the wharves; 
but, having said that the harbor is safe, deep, and shel- 
tered, one has said all there is to say in its favor. For, 
owing to the very contiguity of the protecting hills, and 
the obstruction to the free play of the air, this harbor is 
one of the hottest and sickliest in southern waters. 

Only the natives can live for any length of time in this 
pestiferous hole. The choosing of this port for a gov- 













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MARTINIQUE AND PELEE 373 

ernment depot was made the subject for parliamentary 
inquiry, its insalubrity was so notorious. It is only the 
fact of the almost impregnable strength of its position, and 
its advantageous situation as regards the north coast of 
South America, that has warranted the choice. English 
engineers have declared that, so far as natural situation 
and features are concerned, the crest of the z'igic — the line 
of hills immediately above Castries — is unsurpassed for 
the purpose of fortification. 

Under their direction during the few years past a sys- 
tem of fortification has been planned which, experts de- 
clare, rivals anything on the American continent, not 
even excepting "Quebec. Perfect secrecy has been main- 
tained during these operations, and no outsiders have 
been admitted within the line of defense as marked out by 
the engineers. All the laborers are guarded; and, as few 
of them ultimately escape the deadly fever, most of them 
have carried the secret with them to the grave. 

Visitors are permitted to ascend the hills above the 
town as far as the government house, about half way up, 
and thence the view is magnificent. A goodly portion of 
the island is within view, and also the shores of fair Mar- 
tinique, across the channel of clear water. Between 
Saint Lucia and Alartinique, beyond the channel, rises 
an immense mass of basalt, called Diamond Rock. This 
isolated rock was at one time seized by the English dur- 
ing their war with the French in the last century, pro- 
vided with a garrison and fortified. It was entered on 
the admiralty lists as " His Majesty's ship. Diamond 
Rock " ; and for a twelve-month the crew of gallant Eng- 
lish tars held to their perilous position, bombarding 
everything that passed between their ship and the main. 
They were at last compelled to capitulate, their admiral 



374 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

having gone off and forgotten them; but not until all 
their provisions were exhausted. 

Right across the channel from Diamond Rock, and al- 
most within sight of the z'igie of Saint Lucia, lies the 
estate of La Pagerie, once the home of Josephine. The 
ruins of the house in which she was born are yet pointed 
out, and the pool in the stream where she used to bathe 
may still be seen beneath the silk-cotton trees. 

One should not leave this tropical island without mak- 
ing a visit to the far-famed Soufriere, or sulphur de- 
posit, at the other end of the island. Saint Lucia's in- 
ferno is only about fifteen miles from Castries, and there 
you encounter sulphurous smells, but far preferable to 
those of the hill-beleaguered town. 

The Soufriere is, in fact, the crater of an extinct, or 
at least quiescent, volcano, about looo feet above the sea 
level. It covers about three acres ; a vast caldron of sul- 
phur water is in constant ebullition. The shell covering 
the infernal hole beneath must be remarkably thin, judg- 
ing from the rumblings beneath and the heat. Now and 
then a person breaks through this brittle dome, and gets 
his foot well scalded. An old negro was pointed out to 
me who had lost a leg in this manner ; in fact, the indi- 
vidual was begging for pennies with which to purchase a 
wooden leg to take the place of his original member. 

Near the Soufriere rise those remarkable mountains, 
the " Pitons," or cone-shaped hills, about 2500 feet in 
height. They shoot straight up from the sea, a beautiful 
bay between them, looking at a distance, as the sailors 
in those seas say, like a pair of donkey's ears. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

SAINT VINCENT AND ITS SOUFRIERE 

A camp on the summit of the Soufriere — A volcano that seem- 
ingly slumbered — But awoke in 1902 — The eruptions, ninety 
years apart, very similar in their phenomena — How the Carib 
country was destroyed — The settlements of Yellow and 
Black Caribs — Hemmed in by boiling lava rivers and 
unable to escape — The devastated third of Saint Vincent — 
Destruction of the Wallibou and Richmond estates — Friends 
of the author killed by deadly fumes — When I was a guest 
at Richmond estate, and climbed the great volcano — An essay 
• on a mule — Crossing the dry rivers made by former erup- 
tions — A lunch in the high-woods — My camp 4000 feet 
above the sea — Aspect of the two craters of the Soufriere — 
A venturesome feat — In search of a mysterious bird — How 
we lived in a cave five days and nights — A Christmas dinner 
at high altitude — Man Toby springs a surprise — A descend 
to Yellow Carib country — Old friends with whom I had 
fished and hunted — An Indian giant's descendant — A ban- 
quet hall in the open and a varied menu — How to catch the 
iguana — Food of the Caribs and their beverages — The 
Indians now extinct as a community — A race with death — 
Brained by the volcano — Kingstown the capital. 

ONE of the strangest of my adventures occurred 
in a spot which can no longer be located, except 
relatively to its former surroundings, for it has 
been removed from the earth. I refer to the summit of the 
Saint Vincent Soufriere, as it existed before the terrible 
eruption of 1902. If that eruption had taken place some 
twenty-five years previously it would have deprived me 

375 



376 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

of an unique experience, and the scientific world of sev- 
eral rare birds, for, in the last month of 1878, I was en- 
camped in a cave in the volcano's crater-brim. At the 
period of my ascent the volcano was only a harmless 
giant with a past, gloomy and forbidding of aspect, tow- 
ering above the coast and range of interior mountains in 
majesty, but formidable only through tradition. 

It was noted as the last West Indian volcano from 
which the nineteenth century had witnessed destructive 
eruptions, in the year 1812, the same day that Caracas, in 
Venezuela, was destroyed, having let loose its internal 
forces and devastated the north end of Saint Vincent. 
Ten thousand people perished in Caracas that day, but in 
Saint Vincent the loss of life was small, though the island 
was covered with ashes, cinders, etc., and many estates 
were ruined. Then the giant returned to its seemingly 
sempiternal repose, during ninety years giving no sign 
of the terrible potential energies which were to be used 
against the unfortunate dwellers on its seaward-stretch- 
ing flanks and spurs. 

Saint Vincent, as I knew it in 1878 and '79, had- 
changed little when I revisited the island in 1891-92; 
but ten years after this latter date it had been converted 
from an abode of terrestrial delights into an isle of semi- 
desolation. On the occasion of neither Visit did I detect 
any evidence of activity, present or prospective, in the 
quiescent Soufriere that towered above the north end of 
the island, one hundred miles due south from Pelee, the 
eruption from which was synchronous with its own. At 
the time of the eruption of 1812, " a century had elapsed 
since the last convulsion of the mountain, or since any 
other elements had disturbed the serenity of this wilder- 
ness besides those which are common to the tropical tem- 



SAINT VINCENT 377 

pest. It apparently slumbered in primeval solitude and 
tranquillity, and from the luxuriant vegetation and forest 
•growth, which covered its sides from base to summit, 
seemed to discountenance the fact and falsify the record 
of the ancient volcano." 

Nearly another century rolled round, or, to be exact, 
within ten days of ninety years, before the giant stirred 
again, turned over in his sleep, and crushed the pygmy 
dwellers within the radius of his activity. The second 
time, within the memory of man, human beings were 
caught napping, and human lives were lost, through a 
disregard of this giant's warnings. 

Nearly three months before the last eruption took 
place the people resident at Balaine and Windsor Forest, 
on the flanks of the Soufriere, felt repeated shocks of 
earthquake and heard fearful gn mbling sounds proceed- 
ing from the earth's interior. 

They were disquieted, though not to the extent of 
leaving their homes; but when, on Saturday, the 3d of 
May, 1902, earthquakes occurred continually, they began 
to pack their belongings; and on the 6th, when smoke 
and flames were seen to emit, from the old crater, the 
more thrifty of the Caribs living on the leeward coast 
started to trek to places of safety. 

They started too late, for by that time the rivers run- 
ning down to the coast were boiling hot, the mountain 
slopes were enveloped in dense clouds of smoke and 
vapor, shot through with brilliant flames which rose 
high above and all around the original ' crater of the 
Soufriere. All available boats were seized by fleeing, 
terror-stricken people of the leeward coast, who hurried 
toward Kingston, the capital, with tales of dreadful hap- 
penings. On Wednesday, the 7th, the noises from 



378 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

the crater were like the heaviest thunder, or the roar and 
rattle of incessant cannonading. Vast columns of thick, 
ropy smoke were belched forth from the crater, while 
the volume of pumice, grit, calcined earth, and stones 
was so vast and was expelled with such force as to fall 
on the roofs of Kingston, a dozen miles awa}', like a ter- 
rific shower of hail. The roar and rattle of the falling 
stones was deafening. 

The grandest sights were witnessed from the town of 
Chateaubellair, on the leeward or western shore of the 
island, beginning at about noon of the 7th, with a 
magnificent column of smoke rising toward the zenith, 
climbing, ever climbing, and illumined by multiform 
electric flashes darting in every direction. " Sometimes, 
like thin ropes of golden hue, they would rush, rocket- 
like, up through the mighty pillars of smoke, through 
which darted continuously the most awful flashes of 
forked lightning." According to the reports of observ- 
ers, the phenomena were exactly the duplicate of those 
which occurred in 1812, and an account of the former 
would answer for the latter. 

The later eruption, however, was of longer duration 
than the former, for the Soufriere simmered and boiled, 
muttered and growled, intermittently, fjr days, weeks, 
and months, keeping the inhabitants of the island in a 
state of constant terror and suspense. When the first 
outbreak had somewhat subsided, it was found that fully 
one-third the island, north of a line drawn from Cha- 
teaubellair on the western coast, to Georgetown on the 
eastern, had been devastated, while the eventual total of 
victims killed amounted to more than two thousand. 
A larger area had been overwhelmed than in Martinique, 
but, as it was less densely populated than the former, there 







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<3 



o 
Co 

--Si 



SAINT VINCENT 379 

had been a lesser loss of life. The chief loss fell upon 
the Caribs of the island, who were practically exter- 
minated. 

The " Carib Country " of Saint Vincent comprised — on 
paper — all that portion of the island on both coasts to 
the north of a line drawn across from the town of Cha- 
teaubellair on the leeward coast to Georgetown on the 
windward ; but in point of fact the Caribs possessed but 
a small fraction of the lands. There were two colonies : 
one settlement of " Black Caribs," as those were called 
in whom the negro blood was predominant, and another 
of " Yellow Caribs," who had less negro blood in their 
veins, and some of whom could boast an uncontaminated 
line of descent from cannibal ancestry. 

Strange to say — and at the same time it is a reflection 
upon the manner in which the British have treated these 
brave people — the comparatively pure-blood Caribs had 
no reservation in tribal or individual name, but were 
compelled to rent land of the white proprietors of Saint 
Vincent. Their principal settlement was at Sandy Ba}^ 
in the most secluded part of the island, at the northeast 
end. The Bay settlement took its name from a beach of 
gray sand guarded by volcanic rocks, overtopped and 
tapestried by tropical vegetation. The seas are heavy 
here on the windward coast exposed to the fierce Atlantic, 
and the Caribs, though expert watermen, were some- 
times weeks without fish food of any kind. Around 
their wattled huts of palm, however, they all had gardens 
filled with tropical vegetables and fruits, their chief 
cultivation being cassava and arrowroot, for which there 
was a good sale. 

The Black Caribs lived on or near the northwesterly 
tip of the island, at a place called, from the shape of a 



38o OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

high hill there, Morne Ronde. In habit and disposition 
they were similar to the Yellow Caribs, but there were 
many so black as to be hardly distinguishable from 
negroes. Both settlements were on the slopes of the 
volcano, from the Yellow Caribs' country the great 
Soufriere resembling a gigantic lion couchant. With 
lava rivers descending both flanks of the volcano, and 
their escape cut off by sea, it is not strange that nearly all 
perished in the great " Terror." 

History repeated itself in this latest eruption, for, as 
in 1812, it began with terrible detonations, followed by 
dense columns of smoke, and then the crater burst its con- 
fines and overflowed the adjacent country with molten 
mud, with an accompaniment of poisonous gases which 
killed whomsoever were not whelmed by the flood of mud 
and lava. The Soufriere, in fact, surpassed all previous 
performances, and slew hundreds of people where it had 
killed only scores before. The estates on the leeward 
shores nearest to the volcano, Wallibou and Richmond, 
which suft"ered somewhat in the olden time, were in this 
latter instance utterly destroyed. A torrent of boiling 
mud swept over the sugar mill of the Wallibou estate, 
and then, in the midst of night's darkness through the 
obscuration of the sun by smoke and vapors, the " great 
house " of Richmond was carried from its foundations, 
eight people perishing in its ruins. 

In that same Richmond great-house, then occupied by 
the hospitable Evelyns, I had stopped for a week on my 
first visit in 1878 ; and on my second, thirteen years later, 
I was the guest of a jovial Scotchman, Alex. Eraser, 
and his wife, both of whom were killed in the eruption 
of 1902. 

In response to my inquiry, about a month after the 







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It 

o '^ 



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SAINT VINCENT 381 

first volcanic eruptions, there came a letter telling me that 
while most of the white people I had known were alive, 
though in straitened circumstances and in a constant state 
of alarm, all the Carib Indians of my acquaintance had 
been killed by the deadly fumes. 

" The only white people killed whom you formerly 
knew," my correspondent wrote, " were the Erasers, who. 
had just removed from the Richmond estate, on the lee- 
ward coast, to Orange Hill, on the windward. They had 
been at the latter place only three weeks when the erup- 
tion took place, and they both fell victims to the poisonous 
fumes. Mr. Eraser was found sitting in an easy chair in 
his gallery, with a smile on his face, and his wife in the 
garden, both dead. Just a few hours before a friend of 
the family tried to persuade them to leave the plantation, 
as the crater was showing signs of eruption ; but they 
would not, though the friend escaped." 

" The physical features of Richmond and Wallibou," 
wrote my correspondent, " have changed entirely, the 
latter presenting the appearance of one broad stretch of 
limestone, with only scant remains of the sugar factory; 
while the former shows hardly more than the foundations 
of the house. The heat during the first few days was so 
great that no one could approach the scene of devasta- 
tion ; but when finally surveyed, it was found that the 
shore had receded, and deep water covered spots once 
accessible by foot or on horseback." 

How different was the aspect of the region when, one 
Christmas week, I found myself a guest at Richmond 
great-house. The season's festivities had well begun, 
work in the sugar mills was entirely suspended, and 
(aside from the difficulties of securing a guide for the 
trip) the time was auspicious for an ascent of the Sou- 



382 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

friere. The rains that always accompany the hurricane 
season — extending from July to November — had entirely 
ceased in the low lands, and the weather was serene. 

I made a preliminary ascent and return one day to 
ascertain the necessary equipment for a prolonged stay 
on the summit, and two days afterward essayed the final 
•journey. My host had provided a mule for me to ride 
and a black man as servant and burden bearer, while a 
small boy trotted alongside, laden with a huge hamper 
or Carib basket filled with good things to eat and drink, 
which he carried well balanced on his head. 

We followed, first, the road along the shore, at the 
base of great cliffs and between clumps of gru-gru 
palms, then forded the turbulent river, which was entirely 
extinguished by the last eruption, finally arriving at the 
bed of the "dry-river," a channel filled with lava in the 
outpouring of 1812. The steep banks on either side this 
lava river were like hanging gardens of vines, palms, tree 
ferns, and wild plantains ; but the broad, rocky beds 
were barren of all vegetation as well as without water. 
After passing through an attractive cane-field (which is 
now but an area of desolation) we reached the still more 
attractive foot-hills, where the real climb began, over a 
ridge dividing two beautiful valleys, at that time verdant 
and smiling, but now denuded of all vegetation, lava- 
choked and blasted by fiery gases. 

Two hours^ riding took me to the forest edge, well 
within which was a vast " gommier," locally known as 
the " maroon," or picnic, tree. Here custom ordained a 
halt for breakfast. My man unpacked the smaller hamper 
and spread out a fine repast which had been prepared in 
advance by the good people of Richmond. We were 
then in the " high-woods," or forest belt, that engirdles 



SAINT VINCENT 383 

all the hills of the island above an altitude of 1500 feet. 
The heat of the lowlands was here tempered by altitude 
and the cool breezes that played through the leafy canopy 
overhead, while the gloom beneath the great tree was 
enlivened by the play of humming-birds' wings. In the 
tree tops cooed the wood pigeons, from a distance came 
the subdued chatter of wild parrots. 

Another mile of climbing over a steep but well-made 
trail took us along the back-bone of the ridge, well above 
the high-woods, where the surface was covered with a 
densely woven carpet of ferns and lycopodiums, and when 
we had reached an altitude of about 4000 feet wafts of 
sulphur fumes warned me that we were near the crater's 
edge. Here my mule balked violently, either at the nar- 
row, tortuous trail ahead or the objectionable fumes of 
sulphur, and I had to dismount and proceed the rest of 
the way on foot. 

Suddenly I came upon the crater, descending from the 
narrow brim upon which I stood like an amphitheater, 
nearly circular, and about a mile in diameter. It formed 
an almost perfect bowl, with sides, in places, almost per- 
pendicular. There were two craters, in fact, divided by 
a jagged escarpment, one known as the " old," and the 
other, which is said to have been formed by the eruption 
of 1812, called the " new." It used to be a feat of ven- 
turesome sailors to swarm across the dividing wall, one 
of the famous personages to attempt it, in 1861, being the 
late Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The double crater 
was lowest at its northeast brim, over which, in the last 
eruption and in that of ninety years ago, poured the 
floods that devastated Morne Ronde. 

I watched the placid lake during the greater part of a 
week, for in a scooped-out hole just under the dome- 



384 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

shaped summit of the southern wall (by courtesy called a 
cave, though scarcely ten feet deep) I took up my abode. 
It was a crazy thing to do — granted; but I had an object 
in camping there which (at least at that time) seemed to 
me worthy the means I was compelled to adopt. In 
brief, the real object of my trip was not so much to study 
meteorological or other conditions on a volcano summit 
in the tropics, four thousand feet above the sea, as to 
obtain a new bird. 

This was about the end of my first year in the West 
Indies, and I had already been fortunate enough to find 
several new species of birds. So, when I was told in 
Kingston, the capital of Saint Vincent, that there was a 
bird resident on the Soufriere which no man had ever 
seen, much less taken, alive or dead, I was inspired with 
the desire to get it. In my preliminary trip I had heard, 
but had not been able to find, the " mysterious Soufriere 
bird," as it was called ; hence the second ascent and the 
camp in the crater. 

My black man, Toby, was late in arriving at the cave, 
burdened as he was v/ith an enormous load of provisions, 
and the sun had set before our preparations were finished 
for the night. I had made many camps before, and by 
my direction Toby planted four small trees, which he 
hewed down with his cutlass, about eight feet apart, over 
the crotches of which I stretched a line and hung my 
hammock. A pole above served to spread a square of 
canvas, which was fastened at the corners to pegs driven 
into the soil, an army blanket was bedding, and an old 
overcoat served as a pillow. 

As for Toby, he crouched in a sheltered corner of the 
cave, after we had munched sardines and crackers and 
drunk some coffee, and from the way he snored I fancy 



SAINT VINCENT 385 

he did not much concern himself as to his environment. 
He was a philosophic negro, and after passing the first 
night in some discomfort he next day built a shelter of 
sticks and balisier leaves, accepted, though not without 
protest, one of my blankets, and seemed perfectly con- 
tent — or he was until he learned the object of my visit — 
the shooting of the Soufriere bird — when his belief in 
jombies and obeah asserted itself so strongly that it was 
with difficulty I persuaded him to remain until the end. 

After three days had passed without even a glimpse of 
the " invisible bird," and I had suffered considerably from 
bruises received by falling into pot-holes and ravines 
concealed by the dense matting of ferns and lycopodiums, 
Toby asserted " him was jombie-bud, sah; him bring yo' 
bad luck, ef 3^0' don' watch out ! " 

I was then anxious to shoot the bird, if only to prove to 
Man Toby the fallibility of his argument, and at dawn of 
the fourth day, after passing a restless night drenched by 
the mists from the " trades," I wandered out, determined 
to get the bird, if it lay in my power to do so. Fortune 
favored me, at least to the extent of granting my desire, 
and before ten o'clock I held in my hand the first bird of 
its kind ever seen and identified by man. I had brought 
it within range by a bird-call the Dominican Caribs had 
taught me, and which I had forgotten to use before on 
this trip. After the capture of the first bird I merely 
waded into the dense growth of ferns, keeping myself 
concealed, and called others of the species to me, procur- 
ing in this manner a sufficient number for my purpose. 

The fifth morning of our stay dawned, like all the four 
preceding days, with the mountain and crater wrapped in 
mist. Having my birds to skin and notes to write up, I 
had concluded to refrain from hunting, especially as it 



386 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

was Chnstmas morning, and we had a long afte^'noon 
journey to make down the windward coast to Carib land. 
Toby sat in the cave's mouth, gloomy and glowering. As 
I rolled out of my hammock, he said : 

" Massa, you know what day dis is ? " 

" Yes, Toby ; it is Christmas, and a mighty gloomy one, 
too, it seems to me." 

" Dat am fac, massa. Ain' seen de sun good sense we 
come heah, fo' truf. But do sun am gwine ter shine, sah, 
'bout noon. Now, me massa, me ax as 'tic'lar favah dat 
you go 'way about er houah while I gits de brekfus' 
ready. I'se gut a s'prise fo' you, sartin shuah." 

Loath as I was to leave camp, I could not but see that 
Toby had some particular reason for desiring my absence 
a while, and so humored him. Taking my gun, I wan- 
dered away to the verge of the western crater, where I 
was given, as the sun dissolved the mists that hung about 
the mountain-top and over the valleys, what seemed to 
me then like a foretaste of heaven, in the view outspread 
below. The leeward coast was drawn out for miles, and 
looking over a vast expanse of verdure-clad hills and 
valleys, beyond the glittering waves of the Caribbean Sea, 
I saw the pointed Pitons of Saint Lucia, with a water- 
spout trailing along between the islands, connecting sea 
and sky. 

When I returned, Toby had the cave newly swept and 
garnished, while on the balisier leaves spread upon the 
ground (which served us in lieu of table) was a Christ- 
mas breakfast fit for anyone to eat. As we were to be 
on the move in the afternoon, Toby had combined dinner 
and breakfast in one meal, so there was the inevitable 
" guinea-bird," plump and browned to bursting, flanked 
by a small English plum-pudding and a pile of fruit. A 



SAINT VINCENT 387 

glass of Java-plum wine stood by my plate (which was 
of tin, by the way, though it shone like silver), and a 
bottle of " shrub," a liquor distilled from rum and limcn 
juice, was conveniently at hand. In the background, 
standing beneath the over-hanging roof of our cave, was 
Toby, rubbing his hands with glee at sight of the aston- 
ishment depicted on my face. 

" Um t'ought you'd be s'prised, me massa. Um done 
keep da guinea-bud an' da pudden secret all to mase'f. 
Massa Ebelyn an' missus done sen' 'em up wid da com- 
pluments ob de season, sah. Dey bery nice pussons 
down at de gret-house on Richmond 'state, sah." 

" Indeed they are, Toby, and here's to their health," I 
said, taking up my glass. " Fill your .dipper with shrub, 
my man, and we'll drink to them : Long life and pros- 
perity for the generous people on the Richmond estate ! " 

After breakfast was over, the bird skins prepared, and 
notes written out, we broke camp in our cave on the 
crater, and shortly after noon took the trail for the wind- 
ward coast and Carib country. 

Christmas week was well along toward its ending when 
I descended the windward slopes of the Soufriere and 
sought the shores of Sandy Bay, where lived the last rem- 
nants of the Carib Indians. But the Christmas rejoic- 
ings were by no means over, for they last a fortnight in 
that favored land down near the equator ; and, moreover, 
word had been sent and passed along that I was coming, 
so if necessary the festivities would have been protracted. 
For this was my second visit to the Caribs ; and as on the 
first one I had remained for weeks, had hunted with them, 
fished with them, eaten at their tables, and, in fact, had 
been as good an Indian as I knew how to be, on this my 
second coming I was more than welcome. 



388 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

I was met at the "dry-river" (a stream the bed of 
which had been filled with lava from the volcano in a 
previous eruption) by the sub-chief, old Rabacca, who 
conducted me to Overland, a village of mixed Indians 
and blacks, whence my trip to Sandy Bay was a con- 
tinuous ovation. Rabacca was descended from an Indian 
giant, who, after killing many white men of the island 
more than a hundred years ago, was finally captured and 
gibbeted in chains, surviving a week in dreadful torment 
and dying with imprecations against the English on his 
shriveled lips. Rabacca, however, had inherited no 
animosity against the white man, his worst enemy being 
that West Indian substitute for "John Barleycorn," 
aguardiente, or native rum. When not in his cups 
Rabacca was the best worker on the windward sugar 
plantations, none other, be he white, red, or black, being 
his equal at loading a " moses boat " in the heavy surf 
that beats continuously on the island's east shore. 

Rabacca conducted me to a little hut of reeds, wattled 
and thatched with palm leaves, where, after my hammock 
had been swung and my effects installed, he acted as 
master of ceremonies and reintroduced me to the old 
friends of many years agone. This done, I was invited 
to accompany the assembled Caribs to the banquet hall, a 
little distance away, where the feast was already set out 
that had been prepared against my arrival. The " hall," 
by the way, was merely a vast roof of palm thatch set 
upon stout poles, open on every side, shaded by palms, 
with entrancing views outspread around of smiling sea 
and gloomy, forest-clad mountain slopes. Beneath the 
thatch was a long table of rough boards, covered with 
plantain leaves, upon which were spread not only such 
products of land and sea as bounteous nature has lavished 



SAINT VINCENT 389 

upon dwellers in the tropics, but many viands imported 
from abroad. For instance, there was " tinned " mutton 
from London, genuine Southdown, flanked with heaps of 
breadfruit, roasted as well as boiled. And, by the way, 
if there is anything more palatable — at least to a hungry 
hunter — than boiled breadfruit with Southdown mutton 
and drawn butter, it is that same fruit similarly served 
after having been roasted in the ashes of a campfire. 

As to farinaceous foods, the Caribs, as well as all the 
natives, revel in them, as well as in all kinds of tropical 
fruits ; for what with yam, the eddoe, the banana and 
plantain, the cassava, arrowroot, etc., they can boast an 
inexhaustible supply. Their chief source of reliance, 
however, is the cassava, from the tubers of which they 
prepare " farine," or flour. In their raw state the tubers 
are exceedingly poisonous, but after they have been 
deprived of their outer cuticle, thoroughly washed and 
grated into farine, which is baked in thin cakes over a 
quick fire, they form a wholesome and nourishing food. 
The farine cakes are made about two feet in diameter, 
and after having been hung out in the air to dry they 
will keep a long time. 

Besides the omnipresent cassava cakes, we had that day 
another product of the root, or rather an article in which 
it is the chief constituent, the renowned West Indian 
pepper-pot. Now, the genuine pepper-pot is something 
that must be made in tropical countries to be at its best, 
for its peculiar quality depends upon the " cassareep " 
that is in it, and this is derived from the juice of the cas- 
sava. The poisonous juice, its noxious principle dissi- 
pated by heat, forms when concentrated a preservative 
peculiar and powerful, which is the basis of the pepper- 
pot. After a certain quantity is placed in an earthen ves- 



390 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

sel its antiseptic property serves to preserve fish, flesh, and 
vegetables for an indefinite period. As a consequence 
the pepper-pot jar is always at hand, into it being thrown 
the odds and ends of repasts — in fact, " any old thing " 
in the way of food. The Spaniards call the mess an 
" olla podrida," literally " rotten pot," but nevertheless 
the pepper-pot will continue to hold its own as a piquant 
comestible for a great many years to come. 

The Caribs of St. Vincent are now extinct as a com- 
munity, their settlements at Morne Ronde and Sandy Bay 
having been completely obliterated. Of all those who 
received me so hospitably, setting forth nearly all their 
substance at this Christmas dinner, not one remains alive 
to-day. They have perished from the earth, and every- 
thing they possessed has been utterly destroyed. 

On that fateful 7th of May, 1902, when the crater 
was ablaze, torrents of boiling mud rolling down the sides 
of the Soufriere, and millions of stones hurtling through 
the air, the Caribs of both coasts were engaged in a race 
with Death — and Death won ! Twenty-six were killed 
in a single house, one man was brained by a stone thrown 
by the volcano nine miles from the crater ; hardly any 
Caribs within the " death zone " escaped alive, for the 
demon of the Soufriere seemed resolved upon their exter- 
mination. 

I would there were space in which to mention all there 
is in Saint Vincent worthy description; then the re- 
mainder of this book would be devoted to that island. Its 
capital is Kingstown, with a normal population of five 
thousand, and picturesque dwellings scattered through 
groves of palms lined up around a curving beach. A 
fort is perched upon the northern promontory of Kings- 
town bay, six hundred feet above it, and valleys run back 



SAINT VINCENT 391 

into the hill country filled with all sorts of tropical trees. 
Near to town is the old botanic garden, in which are nut- 
megs -and other spice trees which have been long in culti- 
vation, for this is the oldest botanical station in the 
Lesser Antilles. There, also, is situated Government 
House, where, in the old times, I was a guest of good 
Governor Dundas, and where to-day the Administrator 
resides. 

The peak of Morne Saint Andrews overlooks the town, 
and the mountain ridges run down the leeward coast, 
jutting out in promontories between which lie the most 
beautiful of valleys filled with sugar-cane and arrow- 
root plantations. One of them, Rutland Vale, has been 
bought by the Government with money contributed in 
England and the United States, and devoted to the ref- 
ugees from Carib country, and others, who were domi- 
ciled there and assigned lands for cultivation. The land 
is rich, and the scenery beautiful, as I recall the estate in 
its prime, having been there once for a month while con- 
valescing from a fever, the guest of a noble Scotchman, 
James Milne, who, with his good wife, has gone to join 
the great majority. Their graves are in the churchyard 
at Kingstown, but their blessed memory is alive in many 
hearts. 



CHAPTER XXV 
BARBADOS, GRENADA, AND TOBACCO 

An island highly cultivated — A bit of Old England — Where 
people are poor, but happy — The Old Man of Africa — 
Rotating the seductive swizzle — B'ados once visited by 
George Washington on his only foreign voyage — Typical 
tropical homes abounding in hospitality — Bridgetown and 
Carlisle roadstead — Codrington College — The beautiful 
country districts — Grenada and Grenadines — The Carib's 
"jumping-off place" — Grenada's cacital. Saint Georges — 
Its interior region of delights — Land of the " black proprie- 
tors," who are thrifty and thriving — Colonial oEficialdom in 
the islands — Fruits and spices — Tobago, the. true Crusoe's 
Island, and facts to prove the same — Where Crusoe was 
wrecked — Brief mention of history — Perhaps the original 
home of tobacco — ■ At least some people think so — A tropical 
island with fine forests — The author once camped in Tobago, 
a la Crusoe, and had adventures of the Crusonian kind — 
Tobago's scenery and products fit Defoe's wonderful story. 

NEARLY one hundred miles to the windward 
of Saint Vincent Hes the coralline Barbados, 
a flat but fascinating isle, almost one vast sea 
of sugar-cane, at least a hundred thousand of its 106,000 
acres being in a high state of cultivation. Unlike the 
majority of the Lesser Antilles, Barbardos is mainly level, 
without good harbors, and indefensible as a military 
station ; but at the same time it is one of the most im- 
portant of Great Britain's possessions in the Caribbean 
Sea. It has been English — and so thoroughly English 
that it seems like a bit of Old England taken out bodily 

392 



BARBADOS AND GRENADA 393 

and dropped down into the Tropics — for nearly three 
hundred years, never having been taken by a foreign foe. 

To the " v^^indward " of Saint Vincent it is situated, the 
great aerial river called the " Trades " flowing west- 
erly toward the former island ; yet during the great erup- 
tions from the Soufriere, in 1812 and 1902, it was covered 
with a thick layer of ashes from that volcano, and the 
atmosphere above it was obscured for days. These 
trade winds, blowing continuously from the eastward over 
a vast area of ocean, keep Barbados in good health all the 
time, and, in fact, are about the only medicine the poor 
people can afiford. For, people are poor in Barbados, en- 
during a poverty such as is hardly known elsewhere, 
even though the island is rank with rum and sweet with 
sugar. There are quite 196,000 of them, nine-tenths of 
the number black or nearly so,^mostly so, in fact, — or 
about 1200 to the square mile. As the total area of the 
island comprises but 166 square miles, and is incapable of 
expansion, while the population goes on recklessly re- 
producing itself regardless of the consequences, there is 
certainly a reckoning coming in the future. The home 
government has sent out missionaries to labor with the 
inconsiderate blacks, but without avail ; it has tried to get 
them to emigrate; but the proudest boast of the black 
Barbadian is that he is a " B'adian bawn an' bred, sah," 
and he chooses to continue in his native island. And 
while the birth-rate goes up, the great and only staple, 
sugar, persistently goes down, carrying wages along with 
it, until big, brawny blacks are going begging at twenty 
cents a day, for males, and half that wage for females. 

Dear old Barbados, with its spread of goodly acres 
ringed around by the ever-smiling sea, its palm-dotted 
landscape, its wind-milled sugar buildings, using ancient 



394 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

processes for extracting the sweets from cane ; its old 
English society and system of education ; its traditions 
of century-long loyalty to Britain ; some time — let us 
hope a far time — it must succumb beneath its terrible bur- 
den. For, it cannot go on carrying that Old Man of 
Africa on its shoulders much longer; he is getting too 
ponderous; he is a dead weight that even a more pros- 
perous colony might stagger under. 

Still, the blacks of Barbados are, to all appearances, 
happ}^ — probably because they have not brain enough to 
be otherwise. The " divine discontent " of the " Buckra 
man " has not yet found lodgment in their craniums. All 
classes there nobly cling to and support each other, 
realizing that when one goes, all go, to the bad 
together. 

Living in the Tropics, where every sort of fruit neces- 
sary to man's subsistence can be raised with least labor, 
yet the natives are ever close to starvation. But they are 
not afraid of it, they laugh in its face — and fight. Yes, 
they fight — not among themselves, but the stranger com- 
ing to their shores. They fight and they beg, both lustily 
and without shame. I once saw a body of boatmen in 
Carlisle Bay fight over and drown a passenger whom they 
were trying to get into their respective boats. They 
overturned his boat, and while he and a woman drifted 
away from the steamer, wildly waving their hands and 
shouting for help, they continued their squabble, until 
and long after one of the two was drowned. 

The stranger arriving in Bridgetown, capital and only 
port of Barbados, may consider himself fortunate if he 
be allowed to land without losing some portion of his rai- 
ment, or some article from his outfit. Once landed, how- 
ever, he will desire to divest himself of what remains, for 



BARBADOS AND GRENADA 395 

the heat is something" terrihcthe sun is truly a "scorcher," 
in Bridgetown, and rules the day throughout. But there 
is the " ice house," a combination of boarding-house, 
hotel, and cafe, where things to eat may be had, but more 
especially things to drink. And it is at the ice house that 
bibulous man quenches his raging thirst, perhaps for the 
first time imbibes the seductive cocktail, which is con- 
cocted by experienced " druggists " after a recipe handed 
down from past generations. It is then stirred with a 
" swizzle," a pronged stick that fits into the bottom of a 
large tumbler, and is rotated rapidly between one's two 
hands. It is not solely the rotation of the stick that gives 
the renowned " swizzle " effect, but some saponaceous 
quality in the cambium layer of the wood. Whatever it 
is, it seems to " fill the bill " with the majority of ex- 
perimenters, and generally one may find, among the 
effects of the returning voyager to the Antilles, a bunch 
of swizzle-sticks. 

There is a real hotel out on the strand, where the 
smooth sand-beaches of Hastings invite the traveler to 
rest, and as the only railroad in the island affords a most 
attractive ride to the highlands of " Scotland," one should 
by all means include both in his itinerary. 

There is one feature of Barbados that cannot be over- 
looked: its substantial air of permanent residence. The 
original settlers of B'ados were not all good men, nor 
were they great. Many of them, in fact, were sent out 
here much against their inclinations, and of some it may 
have been said, as of others that came to Saint Kitts: 
" They certainly are a parcel of as notorious villians as 
any transplanted this long tyme." But, when they got 
here, they stayed here, and their descendants after them, 
so that B'ados and its " Bims " are more in the nature of 



396 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

permanencies than any other island and its people in the 
West Indies. The Badians used to claim that they had 
the longest pedigrees, and their cats the longest tails, of 
any existing people and cats whatever. This statement, 
however, must be taken on trust, for the world at large is 
not sufficiently interested to measure either the tails or the 
pedigrees. 

One thing the Bims should be everlastingly provid of — 
though really they don't seem to be aware of the honor 
that was done them — is that the only foreign voyage ever 
taken by one George Washington was to their island of 
Barbados. He had not then become the Father of his 
Country, for he was only in his twentieth year when he 
and his brother Lawrence came to Barbados for the bene- 
fit of the latter's health. They were very well received 
by the landed proprietors, themselves belonging to that 
class, and many were the dinners and entertainments that 
George attended, and afterwards admiringly wrote of 
in his diary. Many, that is, in the short time at his dis- 
posal ; for after he had been two weeks ashore — the voy- 
age having consumed five weeks — he was taken down 
with the smallpox, the marks from which he carried all 
his life in that face which has become so familiar to all 
Americans. 

Even at the time of Washington's visit the planters 
were becoming embarrassed, many of them being in debt, 
as he records in his journal. " How persons coming to 
estates of two, three, or four hundred acres can want, is 
to me most wonderful," he wrote at the time; but that 
was before he had himself entered into possession of 
Mount Vernon, which was bequeathed him by Lawrence, 
who died a few months after his return from Bar- 
bados. 




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BARBADOS AND GRENADA 397 

It is the country region of Barbados, more than the 
town and city, that fascinates the visitor open to impres- 
sions of the sturdy home-Hfe here implanted. It will be 
indeed a sad day for civilization, as well as for Barbados 
in particular, when the presumably inevitable breakup 
comes to pass. For here are homes, in every sense of the 
word they are homes, albeit tropical ones, which are the 
bulwarks of the white race and its religion. From Far- 
ley Hall, the Governor's residence, to the home of the 
planter of moderate income, there is a harmony in archi- 
tecture as well as in hospitable sentiment, that suggests 
the " mother country." The churches and chapels of 
ease, the cemeteries, the parks and gardens, all carry out 
the suggestion of English influence in the higher aims of 
life. Then there is Codrington College. Have you ever 
seen it? — that seat of learning nearly two centuries old, 
with its environment of tropical trees, of palms holding 
their golden coronals a hundred feet aloft and circling 
about the great stone buildings? 

When Mr. Froude was in Barbados he found the model 
habitation in the home of Sir Graham Briggs, " perhaps 
the most distinguished representative of the old Barba- 
dian families " ; a man of large fortune, whom it was my 
privilege to meet, one time, at Nevis, where I was his 
guest for a night and a day. Speaking of Sir Graham's 
magnificent house in the country, Mr. Froude says, after 
mentioning the rare and curious things there gathered 
together : " There had been fine culture in the West 
Indies when all these treasures were collected. The Eng- 
lish settlers there, like the English in Ireland, had the 
taste of a grand race, and by-and-by we shall miss both 
of them when they are overwhelmed, as they are likely 
to be, in the revolutionary tide. Sir Graham was stem- 



398 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

ming it to the best of his abihty, and if he was to go 
under would go under like a gentleman. 

" A dining room almost as large as the hall had been 
once the scene of hospitalities like those which are cele- 
brated by Tom Cringle. A broad staircase led up from 
the hall to long galleries, out of which bedrooms opened, 
with cool, deep balconies and the universal green blinds. 
It was a palace with which Aladdin himself might have 
been satisfied, one of those which had stirred the envying 
admiration of foreign travelers in the last century; one 
of many then, now probably the last surviving representa- 
tive of Anglo-West Indian civilization. Like other forms 
of human life, it has had its day and could not last for- 
ever. Something better may grow in the place of it, but 
also something worse may grow. The example of Haiti 
ought to suggest misgivings to the most ardent philo- 
negro enthusiast. . . . Hospitable, generous, splen- 
did as was Sir Graham's reception of me, it was never- 
theless easy to see that the prospects of the island sat 
heavy upon him." 

Yet these two, both Sir Graham and his distinguished 
guest, have gone to join the silent host, while Barbados 
and its teeming population still exists — and casual visi- 
tors (like myself) still " point a moral and adorn a tale " 
with their prospective woes. " I've had a deal of trouble 
in my time," mused the old man ; " but most of it never 
happened ! " Perhaps Barbados will never colHde with 
its expected catastrophe ; perhaps sugar will go up, and 
blacks will cease from troubling; so the end may never 
come! Let us hope so, for there is a great deal worth the 
while in isolated Barbados, and should it be wiped out a 
lamp of British tropical civilization would have been ex- 
tinguished. 



BARBADOS AND GRENADA 399 

In the Carlisle roadstead of Bridgetown many ships 
assemble, at times, and it is one of the busiest places in 
the West Indies. As the rendezvous of the ships of the 
English Royal Mail, and a port-of-call for the Que- 
bec and other lines, Bridgetown is easily accessible, as 
well as readily left when the time comes for departure. 

Returning to our route of travel down the Caribbees, 
we shall find in the islands of Grenada and the Grena- 
dines the exact antitheses of B'ados in every respect of 
surface, soil, and scenery. The Grenadines begin right at 
the door of Saint Vincent where it opens south, and 
stretch away for sixty miles or so, sometimes their tops 
above the water a few feet ; sometimes, Hke Bequia and 
Carriacou, large, cultivable, and habitable. They are all 
interesting, of course; but what boots it if one cannot 
reach them without the discomforts of a sailing voyage, in 
stale and dirty droghers ? 

Best of all and richest of all is Grenada, southernmost 
of the volcanic Caribbees, an island whose history has 
been repeated in that of Dominica, Martinique, Saint 
Lucia, and Saint Vincent. Like the first named and the 
last two, Grenada is British, and has been so for many, 
many years. It is said to have been bought from the 
Caribs, originally, by the French, for two bottles of rum. 
After the rum was gone, although they had signed a 
formal treaty with the keen-witted Frenchmen, the 
Caribs made war to recover their insular paradise ; but 
in the end were defeated and driven away, never to re- 
turn. Their last " jumping-off place " is shown at the 
north end of the island, the " Morne des Sauteurs," or 
hill of the leapers, for here they leaped from a precipice 
into the sea and were drowned. 

The capital of Grenada is Saint Georges, a town astride 



400 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

a hog-backed peninsula, guarding one of the finest har- 
bors in the chain, occupying the crater of a volcano con- 
sidered extinct. Since the " bobbery " in Saint Vincent, 
however, no crater and no volcano is held to be more than 
quiescent ; for the Souf riere had a big lake in its crater 
and yet blew it ofT into steam at the slightest provocation. 

Saint Georges is picturesque, and is also the entrance 
gate to a country yet more so. Had I space, I might tell 
of an interior region of terrestrial delights : a crater with 
a blue lake in its bosom, only a few hours' ride from 
town ; of forests haunted by the most gentlemanly and 
ladylike monkeys man ever hunted, who live at ease in 
the tree-tops, descending occasionally to deprive their 
common enemy of cacao, bananas, and sugar-cane, etc., 
etc. But the delights of Grenada are those of Saint 
Vincent and Dominica — plus the monkeys. 

There is also one other attraction — to the native — 
which consists in the beautiful surplus the island treasury 
contains, at the end of each fiscal year ! Grenada used 
to have a deficit, like all its sister islands ; but some time 
ago it quietly abandoned the sugar cultivation, to which 
for many generations it had been chained, and began the 
culture of cacao, nutmegs, and all kinds of spices. It is 
now known as the island of black proprietors, for three- 
fourths its residents are individual owners of estates, 
small but profitable, from which they ship annually great 
quantities of special products. I will not give the statis- 
tics, because, in the first place, I abhor them, and in the 
second, I haven't got these handy. But no matter ; none 
of my readers wants to go to Grenada and engage in cacao 
cultivation, and thus, perhaps, be the means of depriving 
some poor " black proprietor " of his daily chocolate. 
Truth to tell, though, there are worse forms of solitary 




13 
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BARBADOS AND GRENADA 401 

confinement than isolating one's self on a cacao planta- 
tion, amid scenery that is grand and decorated with all 
the " frills and fancy fixings " of the tropics. And Gre- 
nada is a tolerably healthy island, too, with streams of 
sweet water, forests of gum and liquid-amber, fairly good 
roads to the country districts ; but with its prospects be- 
clouded (for the white man) by that horde of "black 
proprietors." 

It is the truth, and nobody can refute it, that the fairest 
islands in this archipelago — in fact, all the islands of the 
West Indies, south of Cuba — have been practically aban- 
doned to the black man. But this island of Grenada has 
yet a white man at the helm — mark that ! — and so long as 
he remains, there will be no danger of a lapse into condi- 
tions prevalent in Haiti. British officialdom in Grenada 
is not so expensive a luxury as in some other islands, 
though it is the seat of government of the so-styled 
Windward Islands, consisting of itself. Saint Vincent, 
and Saint Lucia. In Grenada the colonial secretary re- 
ceives a salary of only $3000, against $4500 paid the ad- 
ministrator of Saint Vincent, and $6500 paid the same 
official in Saint Lucia. There has been a mighty protest 
against the stipends paid these strangers in the West 
Indian islands, who are there only by courtesy of the 
natives, and of late years there has been shown a ten- 
dency to scaling down their salaries. Thus, the governor 
of Barbados gets only $14,500 now, when a few years 
ago his salary was $18,000, which is more than most of 
our ambassadors receive. 

It may come as a surprise to some, and be resented 
by others, to be told that Robinson Crusoe, the hero of 
the great eighteenth-century story of adventure, never 



402 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

saw the island of Juan Fernandez, on the coast of South 
America. Even were he real or fictional, the scene of 
his adventures was not there, but nearly forty degrees 
farther north, on an island in the West Indies. And had 
he lived till this time he might find himself a neighbor of 
ours, for his insular domain lies only five hundred miles 
to the southeast of our newly acquired tropical island, 
Puerto Rico. 

Yes, the place where Defoe wrecked his hero, and 
where for twenty-five years or so he lived a solitary life, is 
the British island of Tobago, which lies about twenty miles 
from Trinidad, and one hundred from Barbados. Can I 
prove it ? Most assuredly, and out of the narrative itself. 
If my readers have not forgotten their " Crusoe," and can 
remember the opening scenes of his adventures, they will 
recall that Robinson ran away to sea when he was quite 
young. After being wrecked on the coast of Africa and 
living for two years as a Moorish captive, he escaped and 
finally arrived ofif the coast of Brazil. A great gale over- 
took his vessel, and they were driven before its fury until 
— " the Storm abating a little, the Master made an Ob- 
servation and found that he was in about eleven Degrees 
(ii) of north Latitude, so that we were gotten beyond 
the coast of Guiana and beyond the river Amazones, to- 
ward the river Oroonoque [Orinoco] commonly called 
the Great River." 

This quotation from " Crusoe " shows the approximate 
latitude just before the wreck of his vessel, and totally 
precludes the supposition that he could by any means 
have doubled Cape Horn and reached the island of Juan 
Fernandez, forty degrees to the southward of his last 
observation. 

There is no doubt whatever that Selkirk's island is the 



BARBADOS AND GRENADA 403 

real Juan Fernandez, for he was left there, did live there 
four years, was rescued by an English captain of repute. 
This much is authenticated; but further than this, and 
that perhaps his yarn suggested the Crusoe story, that 
island has no connection whatever with the real and gen- 
uine " Robinson Crusoe." And after all, what a ridicu- 
lous story it is. Defoe had never been at sea — at least, not 
as a sailor — and he makes poor old Robinson do all sorts 
of silly things. For instance, he first strips him of all 
clothing (at the time of the wreck) and then has him swim 
ashore with his pockets full of biscuits ! He saves a chest 
full of fine clothing, yet weeps over the loss of all his 
clothes; Man Friday was well acquainted with the hal)its 
of bears, yet there never were bears in either island; he 
dresses the sweltering Robinson in garments of goatskin, 
in a tropical climate, where no clothes at all were prefer- 
able; he makes him carry a hand-saw, a broad-sword, 
two big guns, a hatchet, brace of pistols, etc., whenever 
he goes out of his cave, even to feed the goats; he has 
him climb up into a tree, " much like a Firr, but thorny," 
where he sits all night trembling for fear of wild beasts, 
when there was not a harmful creature on the island. 
But he is true to nature in at least one instance, when 
Robinson, real sailorman that he is, finding a jug of rum 
in the cabin, takes a " bigge, bigge Dram," with a capital 
D, to be sure. 

Imprimis, then, that island is Tobago, and lies ofif the 
mouth of the Orinoco, within sight of Trinidad, as it lay 
when it got in the way of Crusoe's ship and brought him 
temporarily to grief. It was discovered by Columbus, 
in the year 1498, but was not inhabited then, and the first 
attempt at settlement, by white people from Barbados, 
was repulsed by Indians who had come over from Trini- 



404 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

dad. For nearly two hundred years thereafter it was 
the sport of whatever nation chose to take a hand in 
its affairs. First the Dutch, then the French, then the 
Enghsh made settlements there, only to be driven out 
with slaughter. 

In the year 1632, the date of Crusoe's birth. 200 people 
from Holland came here, but were driven away by the 
savages. In 1677 the Dutch again attempted to live 
there, but were set upon by the English under Sir Tobias 
Bridges, who took 400 prisoners. So it will be seen that 
the history of Tobago and probably its resources were 
well enough known at the time Defoe wrote " Crusoe," 
just prior to the year 1719. As late as 1684 it was un- 
inhabited, and by treaty between France and England 
made a " neutral island," for Indian settlement, and to be 
visited by white men only for food and water. In fact, 
an ideal residence for a hero — a desolate but fertile island, 
teeming with all the bounties of nature, and upon which 
the foot of civilized man had left no impress. 

To conclude these historical references of Tobago: the 
island in 1802 had a voice in the election of Bonaparte, 
and the same year was the residence of John Paul Jones, 
the gallant privateer. There is a dispute between philolo- 
gists and botanists as to whether Tobago gave its name 
to tobacco, or whether it was derived from the weed it- 
self. It has been said that Sir Walter Raleigh got his 
first seductive whiff of nicotiana out of dried leaves 
sent from Trinidad and obtained in Tobago; though 
the weed was introduced in Europe long before his time. 
The plant is a native in Tobago, and grows well there, 
as well as all the products of the tropics. The climate 
of the island is tropical, situated, as it is, but eleven 
degrees north of the equator, but not altogether healthy. 



BARBADOS AND GRENADA 405 

A mountainous and forest-covered island, its fertile 
soil is but partially cultivated, though there are many val- 
leys covered with sugar-cane which yield prolifically. 
Tobago is about 114 square miles in area, with a total pop- 
ulation of less than 18,000, most of the inhabitants being 
descendants of the freed negro slaves, and very few white 
people living here. There are but two towns on the 
island, the larger of the two, Scarborough, the capital, 
situated on a broad bay, having about a thousand inhabit- 
ants. There is no hotel here, and but an indifferent 
boarding house, where " all the luxuries of the season " 
are conspicuous by their absence. 

Shall I produce further proof in support of my asser- 
tion that the real " Crusoe's Island " lies, not in the South 
Pacific, but in the Caribbean Sea, within six days' voyag- 
ing of New York? Well, then let me cite another, 
though modern, hero of literature, Charles Kingsley, 
who, in his "At Last, A Christmas in the West Indies," 
declares : " Crusoe's Island is almost certainly meant for 
Tobago ; Man Friday had been stolen in Trinidad." 

When I read that, I determined to go there myself. I 
took a copy of the book along, and not only covered the 
ground entirely, but actually' lived as Crusoe lived two 
hundred years before. I had my hut by the seaside, my 
camp in the forest, my "poll parrot," and my hammock 
under the palms. I had everything, almost, that Crusoe 
had, and a great deal more than he ; for much has been 
discovered since he flourished. I had no Man Friday, 
in Tobago ; but, a few months before going there, I had 
lived with the Caribs of Dominica and Saint Vincent, the 
only descendants of the tribe to which he belonged. 

Tobago is a beautiful island, with tropical forests, in- 
teresting birds, and a fine climate. The scenery almost 



4o6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

exactly fits the story, and I used my camera in obtaining 
mementos of my visit. It is comparatively accessible, 
and the language spoken there is our own. To reach it, 
take steamer for Barbados or Trinidad, and transfer to 
a smaller craft which plies among the islands. Its in- 
habitants, who are mostly of African descent, know 
nothing of Robinson Crusoe, probably owing to the fact 
that their ancestors were brought there long after he left 
the island. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
TRINIDAD, AND THE ISLANDS' RESOURCES 

Southernmost of the West Indies — English for two hundred 
years — An expensive government — Port of Spain and the 
botanic gardens — Forestal attractions of Trinidad — Sir 
Walter Raleigh and the things he saw in Trinidad — The 
story he told Queen Elizabeth — Why he lost his head — 
Why he deserved his fate — His description of the great pitch 
lake — How he missed becoming a millionaire — Excursions 
in the Gulf of Paria — Islets and caves near the Boca — As 
to the future of the islands — Old and new times — A con- 
trast — Coolies and John Crows — The numerous fruits of 
the West Indies — Where crown land can be obtained — 
Area and population of the West Indies. 

TRINIDAD, an island lying between the tenth 
and eleventh degrees of north latitude, may 
be called the southernmost of the West Indies; 
but properly speaking, it really pertains to South America, 
for its physical characteristics, its fauna, and its flora are 
continental, and not insular. At some time, quite remote, 
it was probably cut off from the northeast coast of South 
America, from which it is now separated by two straits. 
These channels of turbulent waters w«re first seen by 
Columbus in 1498, when he was on his third voyage to 
America. He called the island Trinidad, after the holy 
Trinity, having made a vow previously to sighting its 
mountains that he would so name the next land he 
discovered. 

407 



4o8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

Toward the end of that third voyage Columbus imag- 
ined himself drawing near some sub-tropical inferno, 
for he had sailed farther southward than on any previous 
voyage, and was within ten degrees or so of the equator. 
Reasoning from what he had read in the books of specu- 
lative philosophers, he expected to find all the vegetation 
parched by the heat, and the inhabitants of such lands as 
he hoped to discover black as jet, from continued ex- 
posure to a tropical sun. Reasoning thus, he was not 
alarmed at the heat which opened the seams of his ships 
and drank up the contents of his water-casks, for it was 
no more than he expected. 

As he approached the land he argued, according to an 
old historian of his voyages : " The earth is not round, 
after the form of a ball or an apple, but rather shaped like 
a pear as it hangeth on the tree ; and this region is that 
which possesseth the supereminent or highest part there- 
of, nearest unto heaven. Insomuch that he contended 
the earthly paradise to be situated in the tops of those 
three hills, which the watchman saw out of the topcastle 
of the ship; and the outrageous stream of fresh waters 
which did so violently issue out of the Gulf of Paria and 
strive so with the salt water, fell headlong from the sum- 
mits of said mountains." 

Columbus entered the Gulf of Paria, which lies be- 
tween Trinidad and the mainland of South America, 
through the southern channel, which he named the Boca 
del Serpiente, or the Serpent's Mouth; and the northern 
exit of the gulf into the Caribbean Sea (which he 
reached after coasting the western shores of Trinidad) 
he called the Boca del Drago — Mouth of the Dragon — 
because both were filled with rushing, roaring waters that 
nearly overwhelmed his ships 



TRINIDAD AND OTHERS 409 

Ninety years elapsed before the Spaniards colonized" 
Trinidad, and they held it two hundred years, or until it 
capitulated to the British under General Abercromby, in 
1797. Ever since this last date it has been in British 
hands, having been confirmed to them by the treaty of 
Amiens, in 1802, and is now, as is well known, one of 
their most important possessions, with its commanding 
situation ofif the Orinoco's mouth, at the northeast tip of 
South America. Fifty-five miles in length by forty in 
breadth, with an area of about 1750 square miles, 
Trinidad is ten times as large as Barbados, yet has only 
eighty thousand more inhabitants. But much of its ter- 
ritory is mountainous, and some is swampy and mala- 
rious, unlike clean-skirted, breezy Barbados, with nearly 
all its acres available. About two hundred thousand 
acres are under cultivation, devoted mainly to sugar-cane, 
cacao, cocoanuts, spices, and tropical fruits in general, 
and as the island has an equatorial range of fruit and 
vegetable products, with rich soil in unlimited tracts, and 
a climate, in the highlands, not inimical to white people, 
it should prove attractive to settlers. 

Great and varied as are the resources of Trinidad, 
yielding a revenue of nearly $4,000,000 annually, the 
island does not progress as one might expect it to, 
for its expenditures more than keep pace with its income. 
This, however, is not to be wondered at, when its official 
list is scanned, with a governor at $25,000 per annum, an 
attorney-general at $7500, a colonial secretary and a di- 
rector of public works at $6000 each, and fifteen other 
public " servants " with salaries ranging from $3000 to 
$5000 apiece. Think of a relatively insignificant country 
like Trinidad, with less than half a million inhabitants, 
and most of these blacks, coolies, and colored people. 



4IO OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

living from hand to mouth, paying their " governor " a 
salary half as large as that received by the President of 
the United States ! And the Trinidadians wonder why 
they cannot save up something for a rainy day, and why 
their debt has continued to grow and grow, until it is^ 
now many million pounds ! 

When, only, as Mr. MacNish, of Jamaica, truly says, 
the British West Indians become wise enough to pay 
salaries commensurate with services rendered, and ship 
back to England their high-priced and purely ornamental 
officials, may they enter upon the paths of progress. But 
they cannot save anything from their revenues so long as 
the " wise sharps of Downing Street " have the handling 
of them. So long as there is a tempting revenue to ex- 
ploit, like that of Trinidad, just so long will these non- 
working, non-producing, non-residents absorb the whole 
of it — and a little more. 

The governor's residence, in the beautiful botanic gar- 
den, near Port of Spain, is not " half bad " for an exile 
from the mother country to be quartered in, with or with- 
out a salary attached, and the domiciles of the under 
officials are by far the best in the colony. That may not 
be saying too much, for Port of Spain is not the hand- 
somest city in the universe, nor the most . attractive. It 
has bravely wrestled with many natural disadvantages, in- 
cluding the shallow, filth-contaminated harbor, where 
steamers of any size have to anchor miles from the shore. 
It has been burned to the ground several times, but has 
not suffered from storms to any extent, being below the 
hurricane line. It need not be affirmed of Port of Spain 
that it is hot, perhaps unhealthy, for it stands with its feet 
in hot water all the time, in the northeastern bight of the 
great Gulf of Paria. It is a busy place withal, as well as 



TRINIDAD AND OTHERS 411 

an ambitious one, forty steamers making calls here, going 
north among the islands and to the States, east to Vene- 
zuela, south to Orinoco towns, and to the chief ports 
of the continent. This British port is the first of impor- 
tance near the Orinoco's many mouths, and draws from 
the great river stores of gold, hides, woods, and medicinal 
plants. There is a line direct from the United States, as 
well as another that calls here on the way to Demerara, 
while small steamers make the wonderful voyage up the 
Orinoco as far as navigation permits. 

Hot, but not notoriously unhealthy. Port of Spain sim- 
mers calmly in the tropical sun without complaint, takes 
its siesta at the noon hours, wakes up toward evening, be- 
coming as active as a temperature of eighty-five or ninety 
will permit, and settles down to silence only after the mid- 
night hour. Its people are famous for their gambling 
propensities, horse-racing, and even athletic games, like 
cricket and base-ball. They like to picnic and pleasure- 
seek, in the beautiful forests back of town amid the 
mountains, where are many bowers of beauty and water- 
falls uncounted. 

But the forests of Trinidad are too vast for us to essay 
them. Canon Kingsley almost filled a book about them 
thirty years ago. Get it — "At Last, a Christmas in the 
West Indies " — and if you read it you will have ac- 
quired much information on tropic vegetation. Kingsley 
was an enthusiast, and that trip down the islands, with 
Trinidad as his principal tarrying-place, was his first to 
the tropics — also his last, more's the pity. The first time 
I looked upon Port of Spain was one Fourth of July, nine 
years after Kingsley's visit, and there were many people 
who remembered him and his exuberant enthusiasm ; 
some few who took his criticisms much to heart, but none 



412 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

who dissented from his estimate of Trinidad's attrac- 
tions. 

It would be unpardonable in me not to make mention 
of the greatest Englishman who preceded Kingsley to 
Trinidad, one Walter Raleigh, who first sailed into the 
Gulf of Paria in 1595 ; who, like Columbus, made note of 
the " oisters " growing on the mangrove trees, and, un- 
like Columbus, was kind to the natives whom he met 
ashore. He was then in search of El Dorado, the Gilded 
King, who was said to have his residence on an island far 
up the Orinoco ; and though he did not find him, nor even 
catch a glimpse of his wonderful retreat, he informed 
Queen Elizabeth, on his return, that he not only had an 
interview with the Gilded One, but that he, at sight of 
her portrait, had fallen in a faint from sheer admiration. 
Inasmuch as the great Bess had " a face that would stop a 
clock," as the saying is, she swallowed the story entire, 
and richly rewarded Sir Walter for his fib. He was com- 
pelled to swallow it himself, twenty-two years later, when 
that " wise idiot," King James, sent him back to verify 
the yarn. But it stuck in his throat, and on his return 
the King felt constrained to cut off his head to get it out. 
At least, he deprived poor Sir Walter of his caput, os- 
tensibly on account of having fought the Spaniards at 
Trinidad when it was more in accord with British policy 
at that moment to keep the peace. 

To cruise in Spanish waters and invade a Spanish col- 
ony without getting into trouble was, as King James well 
knew, quite the impossible thing — and that is why he sent 
Sir Walter out to Trinidad on his second adventure. He 
lost his son, young Sir Walter, in the fight with the 
Spaniards ; he lost his reputation, and finally he lost his 
head — all which must have been rather disquieting to 



TRINIDAD AND OTHERS 413 

Sir Walter ; and it must have convinced all who were 
cognizant of the facts that, in the words of our great 
professional humorist, " when in doubt one should always 
tell the truth." 

Certain wealthy Americans should erect a monument 
to Raleigh, provided they be penetrated with the grati- 
tude they should be penetrated with, because of his, the 
first, mention of that wonderful Pitch Lake which is to 
be found right where he discovered it more than 
three hundred years ago, at about sixty miles distance 
from the present Port of Spain. Many a description 
of it has been written since his was penned, but none, 
perhaps, that describe it better: " We came to anchor at 
Tierra de Bri, short of the Spanish Port some ten 
leagues. This is a piece of land some two leagues long 
and a league broad, all stone pitch or bitumen, which 
riseth out of the ground in little springs or fountains, 
and so, swimming a little way, it hardeneth in the air and 
covereth all the plain. There are also many springs of 
water, and in and among them many fish. . . . There 
is that abundance of stone pitch that all the ships of the 
world may therewith be laden from thence ; and we made 
trial of it in trimming our ships to be most excellent 
good, and melted not with the sun as the pitch of Nor- 
way, and, therefore, for ships trading wdth the south parts 
very profitable." 

Trinidad's deposit of asphalt has most assuredly proven 
very profitable to the syndicate that works it, paying the 
government $60,000 per annum for the privilege, on a 
forty-years' lease ; and that " all the ships of the world 
may therewith be laden from thence," is as true now as it 
was in good Sir Walter's time. Verily, it seemeth bot- 
tomless, he might have said, for the more the exploiters 



414 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

take out of it the more they may, some occult force con- 
tinually pressing it up from beneath. A million tons, in 
all probability, have been taken out of the " lake," and 
millions more remain. 

Alas that Sir Walter told that fib about the Gilded One 1 
for it profited him nothing to romance in that manner 
to a vain old spinster who, by accident, wore a crown. 
What opportunities, forsooth, he threw away ! One of 
the first to exploit the Trinidad asphalt, and also first to 
smoke and appreciate tobacco, he should have formed 
a compan}^, issued unlimited stock — and exploited the 
stockholders. He might thus have lived a life of ease, 
and died an honored millionaire ; but, he never formed 
a trust ! No wonder he lost his head. Some there be, in 
sooth, who think he richly deserved his fate for twice 
turning the cold shoulder to Dame Fortune. 

A substance similar to the Trinidad " pitch " occurs in 
Barbados, where it is called " manjak " ; but not in such 
quantities, being found in shallow beds only a few feet in 
width ; while the lake at La Brea contains more than a 
hundred acres, and is practically bottomless. A small 
steamer runs down from Port of Spain once a day, and 
the Quebec Line excursionists are usually taken thither ; 
but it should be stipulated that the trip be made so as 
to arrive at the landing-place early in the morning, 
as the heat of mid-day is something almost beyond belief. 
So, too, are the odors which greet one there, as well as 
the sights. In fact, the pitch lake must be regarded as a 
monstrosity, solely, and viewed in that light, one will be 
willing to endure discomforts in getting a glimpse of it. 

Several interesting excursions offer from the Port, be- 
sides the trip to La Brea, as, for instance, to the islands in 
the Gulf, which are extremely picturesque, some of them 



TRINIDAD AND OTHERS 415 

occupied as summer watering places, where the bathing, 
boating, and fishing are excellent. Then there is the won- 
derful cave at Huevos, the abode of the Guachero Bird, 
or Diablotin, a species of goatsucker, by some highly 
esteemed as a boii boucJic, and which may be found by the 
thousands. It was first described, I think, by Humboldt, 
and is particularly mentioned by Kingsley, whose guide 
to the cave was yet living a few years ago. The islands 
near the Dragon's Mouth, like Monos and Huevos, are 
washed by the waves of swift currents, worn into caves 
and draped with vines, but have beaches of fine sand in 
cliff-sheltered bays. 

Stretching away westward from the Boca may be seen 
the point of Paria, a bit of South America's mainland, be- 
yond which are the once-famous Pearl Islands, Margarita 
and others, whence Vespucci and Ojeda, in 1499, and 
after them many other voyagers, drew large supplies of 
pearls, from which they made their fortunes. These 
islands are difficult to reach, and moreover can hardly be 
claimed as West Indian, since they are but detached por- 
tions of the great continent, at the northern coast of 
which our voyage comes to an end. 

A final word as to the prospects, resources, the possible 
future, of these islands seems imperative in this connec- 
tion. There is no denying the fact that, with the excep- 
tion of Cuba and Puerto Rico, possibly of Trinidad, the 
West Indian islands have retrograded in the past century. 
They have grown poorer, the British islands especially, 
their population blacker, hence they are less desirable as 
places of residence for white folk. Time was when 
there were vast plantations of cane, which, converted into 
sugar at $150 to $200 per ton, and rum at $1.50 to $2.00 



4i6 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

per gallon, supported in idleness a luxurious aristocracy, 
who lived in London or at the capitals of Europe and al- 
lowed their agents to manage their estates. So it fell out 
finally, after the slaves were freed, and after beet-sugar 
competition brought down the prices, that most of the 
sugar estates became the properties of those thrifty 
agents, or " attorneys " ; but eventually even these sharp 
lawyers failed to make them pay. 

Sugar is just as sweet, and rum as insidious, as ever; 
but demand has fallen with sharp competition. The im- 
portation of coolies to supply the places of lazy negroes 
has not proved entirely successful ; though these former 
now swarm in Trinidad, and form a most picturesque 
element of the population. In fact, the coolies in the 
country and the " John Crow " scavengers at the Port 
add greatly to the attractive features of Trinidad. The 
first were imported, under contract, to work nine hours 
per day at tenpence per diem; the latter are natives and 
work for nothing; but both support themselves mainly 
on the refuse of the island. 

In some of the islands the attention of proprietors has 
been turned from sugar-cane to the raising of fruits and 
the " small cultivations," such as cacao, bananas, nut- 
megs, and spices generally; limes, oranges, pine-apples, 
and arrow-root. It is in these " cultivations " that young 
men going to the islands with the intention of establish- 
ing homes therein will find their fortunes — if at all ; and 
it will be through the failure of the islands to continue 
sources of revenue to their present possessors that they 
will consent to their passing into the hands of a contingu- 
ous country capable of making them tributary to her 
greatness, and at the same time raising them to pros- 
perity, 



TRINIDAD AND OTHERS 417 

All sorts of fruit — perhaps it is needless to mention — 
may be raised in those favored islands, as the grape, date, 
fig, orange, lime, lemon, sapadilla, pine-apple, shaddock, 
mango, cocoanut, citron, guava, plantain, banana, star- 
apple, pomegranate, plum, cherry, mammie, custard-ap- 
ple, avocado pear, tamarind, mangosteen, chrimoya, water 
lemon, bread-fruit, sugar-apple, sour-sop, acajou, — their 
name is legion. At ordinary elevations all the vegetables, 
such as eddoes, yams, peas, parsnips, cabbage, beans, 
spinach, radish, egg-plant, beet, celery, maize, cassava, 
sweet potato, mountain cabbage (from the palm), pump- 
kin, melons, ochra, etc., etc. There are, in addition, many 
special products, like coffee, cacao, cinnamon, nutmeg, 
ginger, vanilla, pimento, clove, aloes, arrow-root, bread- 
nut, tea, tobacco, etc., which either cannot be raised in 
the United States, or else only in certain restricted areas ; 
though in the West Indies everywhere prevalent, accord- 
ing to altitude and the character of the soils. 

Lands for settlement and cultivation are available in 
Cuba, Santo Domingo, nearly all British islands except 
Barbados, and in some few of the English isles crown 
lands may be obtained in small or large tracts, as in 
Dominica, Saint Vincent, Tobago, and Trinidad. Domin- 
ica has a particularly choice tract of land, about 60,000 
acres, known as the Layou Flats. This has but recently 
been opened to settlement, by the construction of a good 
road from Roseau, and already quite a number of young 
Englishmen have availed themselves of the low price of 
ten shillings per acre to establish themselves as planters 
of limes, coffee, cacao, and tropical fruits in general. 

It happens by a fortunate chance that both crown lands 
and good climate are found in Dominica, and also good 
government, while the population, though very dark com- 



4i8 OUR WEST INDIAN NEIGHBORS 

plexioned in the main, contains some very vigorous 
examples of Old England's best stock, who have been 
transplanted to a tropical clime, where they thrive to 
perfection. 

Here are the islands of the West Indies, proper, with 
their respective areas and populations given approx- 
imately, from latest statistics : 

Area in Popu- 

square miles. lation. 

Cuba 45,872 i,S73,8oo 

Bahamas S,45o 66,400 

Jamaica 4,000 740,000 

Haiti 9,240 1,240,000 

Puerto Rico 3,6oo 950,000 

Santo Domingo 20,590 600,000 

Danish West Indies — St. Thomas, Santa 

Cruz, and St. John 142 33,ooo 

French Islands — Guadeloupe, Martinique, 

and smaller islands 1,100 360,000 

Leeward Islands — Antigua, St. Kitts and 
Nevis, Montserrat, Virgin islands, 

Dominica 641 130,000 

Windward Islands — St. Lucia, St. Vin- 
cent, Grenada, Grenadines 510 136,000 

Barbados 166 198,000 

Trinidad and Tobago 2,000 290,000 

Dutch Islands — Curagao, Saba, St. 

Eustatius 436 52,000 



THE END 



INDEX 



Abaco, Great and Little, 20, 
22 

Aboriginal West Indians, 
343, et seq. 

Aborigines of the Bahamas, 
9; of Cuba, 39; of His- 
paniola, 177 

Aeklin Island, parrots of, 19 

Adelantado, B. Columbus, 
210, 12, 18 

African ancestors of Haiti- 
ans, 170; birds and grains, 
315; fetichism, in Haiti, 
167 

Agassiz, Prof. A., on Car- 
ibbean Sea, 3 

Agouti, the inoffensive, 235 

Agriculture, tropical, 239. 

Agua Alta, river, Jamaica, 
123 

Aguadilla, Puerto Eico, 249 

Agueynaba, Cacique, Puerto 
Eico, 241 

x\ir plants, abundance of, 
88 

Almendares Eiver, 58 

Ajoupa, or forest camp, 338 

Albemarle, Duke of, in 
Jamaica, 147; Duke and 
Duchess of, 203, 204. 

Alger's "Spanish- American 
War," 43 

Alpargatas. Moorish San- 
dals, 91 

Alto Cedro, station of, Cuba, 
31, 87 



Amazon Island, or Madinino, 

203 
Amazones, legends of the. 

302 
Americanized Spaniard, the, 

62 
America's oldest city, XIII,, 

209 
Anana, or pineapple, first 

found in Bahamas, 18 
Andros Island, flamingoes of, 

19 
Anegada, Island of, 266 
Antigua, Island of, XIX., 

306, 307 
Antillean Outposts, 2 
Arawaks, Indians of West 

Indies, 22 
Area and resources of islands, 

415, 418 
Areeibo, Puerto Eico, 249 
Aristocracy, The, of Haiti, 

172, 174, 175 
Armadillo, The, in West In- 
dies, 236 
Arrows, Bay of, Samana, 

205 
Asturians, in Cuba, 97 
Atares, Castle of, Cuba, 27 
Atlantis, The Lost, theories 

of, 3 
Atlantis and Antillean leg- 
ends, 268 
iVtrocities in Haiti, 170 
Aves Island, Caribbean Sea, 

353 
Aybonito, Puerto Ei^-o, 253 
Aztecs, compared with Car- 

ibs, 346 
Azua and sugar country, 207 



420 



INDEX 



B 



Bagley, Ensign, and compan- 
ions, 28 

Bahamas, attractions of, 5; 
population of, 6, 8; statis- 
tics of, 6; number and ex- 
tent of, 1, 2, 4; when dis- 
covered, 1; farming in the, 
17^ peculiar productions of, 
18 ; important islands of, 
20, 21 

Bahia Honda, 24, 113 

Baracoa, Port of, Cuba, 29, 
35 

Barbados, Grenada and To- 
bago, XXV., 392; popula- 
tion of, 393 

Barboles, Marquis de, 228 

Barbour, Sir David, K, C. S. 

I. 133 135 

Barbuda,' Island of, 309, 316 
Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, 

322, 323 ; Saint Kitts, 292 
Batabano, Gulf of, 114; town 

of, 52, 71 
Bath, Springs of, Jamaica, 

143 
Bayamo, Cuba, 51 
Beauharnais, Husband of 

Josephine, 366 
Bejucos, or bush-ropes, 88, 

99 
Bellamar, Caves of, 80 
Bermudas, compared with 

Bahamas, 16 
■ Bimini Cays, "Fountain of 

Youth," 20 
Bird, A new, discovered by 

Author, 305, 335 
Birds of the Bahamas, 19 
"Blackbeard," or John Teach, 

II, 12, 13 



Black Caribs, St. Vincent, 

379, 380 
Black King of Haiti, see 

Christophe. 
"Black Eepublic," The, by 

Saint John, 166, 
Blacks, of Jamaica, 147, 148, 

49 
Blacks, Colony of, at Sa- 

mana, 205 
Blake, Sir Henry, Jamaica, 

127 
Blockade runners, in Nassau, 

14 
Blockhouses, Spanish, 82 
Blue Mountain Peak, Ja- 
' maica, 121, 138, 139 
Bobadilla, rival of Columbus, 

194, 213 
Boca del Agua (Bog Walk) 

River, 123, 142 
Bohio, or native hut, 75, 89, 

99; the Puerto Rican, 232 
Boiling Lake, of Dominica, 

329, 336, 311 
Bombas, Parque de, Puerto 

Eico, 250 
"Bonaparte's Cocked Hat," 

270 
Booby Island, Story of, 298 
Botanic Garden, St. Vincent, 

391 
Bottom, Town of, in Saba, 

270 
Boyer, President of Haiti, 

171, 76 
Brea, La, Trinidad, 413, 414 
Bridgetown, Barbados, 394 
Briggs, Sir Graham, Barba- 
dos, 397 
Brimstone Hill, Saint Kitts, 

292 



INDEX 



421 



Buccaneer, Lay of the Last, 
353 

Buccaneers, of the Bahamas, 
11; of Cuban Coast, 119; in 
Jamaica, 123; of Tortuga, 
157, 158, 159; resorts of, 
266. 

Bull-fights and Cock-pits, 

247 
Bull Hunting, Barbuda, 309 

C 

Cabanas Fortifications, 26 
Cacocum, Station of, 86 
Caguas, Puerto Eico, 254 
Caicos Islands, 21 
Caimanera, Cuba, 37 
Camagiiey, Hotels of, 84 
Camisa, The Cuban's, 91 
Camp in a Cave, My, 383-88 
Canarreos, Archipelago of, 
52 . 

Cane Eiver, Falls of, Ja- 
maica, 144 
Caney, El, 43, Fight at, 44, 

47 
Cangrejos, Puerto Eico, 28 
Cannibalism in Haiti, 161, 

66, 67, 170 
Cannibals, 343, 346, etc. 
Caparra, Old city of, 240, 249 ^ 
Capital and Colonists, VI 

108 
Capromys, or Utia, where 

found, 19 
Caribbees, Chain of the, 268 
Carib Country, 379, 387 
Caribs of Antigua, 307, 308 ; 

of Dominica, 343 et seq.; 

of Saint Vincent, 377, 79 

81, 88 



Carlisle Eoadstead, Barba- 
dos, 399 

Casa Blanca, P. de Leon's 
castle, 247 

Casa de Colon, Sto. Domingo 
217 

Casas, Bartolome de las, 219 

Case a vent, hurricane cel- 
lar, 366 

Cassareep, or pepper-pot, 389, 

90 
Cassava, Tubers of, 389 
Castries, Harbor of, 371, 72 
Cat Island, Bahamas, 18 
Cathedral of Havana, 64 
Cathedral of Sto. Domingo 

220 
Cauto Eiver, Cuba, 50, 51, 87 
Cayey, Puerto Eico, 254 
Caymans, group of islands 

bet. Cuba and Jamaica 
Cayo Smith, Santiago, 49 
Ceballos, Colony of, 83 
Cedar, Logs of, 85 
Ceiba, or silk-cotton, 15 
Cervera and squadron, 40, 41 
Chaffee, General, at El Can- 
ey, 47 
Champ de Mars, Port au 

Prince, 152, 154 
Charlotte Amalia, St. 
Thomas, 255, 58, 59, 61, 6Q 
Chateaubellair, St. Vincent 
378 

Christian, King of Denmark, 

263 
Christophe, black king, 156, 

57, 59, 169, 171, 76 
Churches of Sto. Domingo 

219 
Chrysotis Augusta, The, 348 
Cibao Eegion, Sto. Domingo. 

207, 208 



422 



INDEX 



Gibber, comedian, tale of, 204 

Ciego de Avila, Town of, 82 

Cienfuegos, City and Harbor 
of, 52 

<'City of the Gentlemen," Sto. 
Domingo, 182 

Clive, Wilfred, death of, 340 

Coamo, Baths, Puerto Eico, 
252, 53 

Cobre, Mines of, 49; Virgin 
of, 49, 50 

Cockpit Country, Jamaica, 
143 

Codringtons, The, Barbuda, 
308, 310 

Codrington College, Barba- 
dos, 397 

Coffee Country of Cuba, 38 

Colardeau, M. St. Felix, 323, 
325; Madam, 325 

Colonial System, French, 
320 

Colonies in Cuba, 113, 114, 
115 

Colonist, The, in Cuba, 111, 
112, 113, 116, 117 

Columbaria of San Juan, 
245 

Columbus, Bartholomew, 210, 
211, 212, 218; ashes of 
Christopher, 64, 65, 66, 191, 
et seq. ; in chains, 213 ; 
Christopher in Cuba, 23, 
29, 30; landfall of, in 
Bahamas, 18, 21; flagship 
of, 156; discovers Jamaica, 
123; first voyage to Haiti, 
etc., 210; discovers Puerto 
Rico, 246; in search of 
Amazons, 302 ; discovers 
Trinidad, 407, 408; Diego, 
son of Christopher, 193 



Concepcion de la Vega, 182, 

206 
"Conchs," in the Bahamas, 

13 
Conquistadores, The Spanish, 

159, 178, 221 
Constant Spring Hotel, 

Jamaica, 127 
Coolies, Pay of, in Jamaica, 

133 
Coral Bay, Harbor of Saint 

John, 258 
Cortes, Hernando, at Santi- 
ago, 42; Trinidad, 52 
Costumbres, Habits, of 

Cubans, 103, etc. 
Crater of Mount Misery, 293 
Creoles of Martinique, 363, 

365 
Creole Dialects of Haiti, 170 
Cringle, Tom, in Jamaica, 

126 
Cristo Station, and fruits of, 

89 
Crooked Island, Bahamas, 21 
Croton eleutheria, 18 
Crown Lands in W. Indies, 

417 
Crusoe, Eobinson, in Tobago, 

401, 402, et seq. 
Crusoe's Island, where situ- 
ated, 401, et seq. 
Cruz, Ca]pe, 52 
Cuba Railway, 73, et seq., 

110 
Cuban, as author knew him, 

90, et seq. 
Cubana, Female Cuban, The, 

105, 106 
Cubano, The, 91, 105 
Cudjoe, Jamaica Maroon, 
145 



INDEX 



423 



Culebra, U. S. Naval Sta- 
tion bet. P. Kico and St. 
Thomas. 

Curasao. Coast of Venezuela, 

2S1, 282, 283, 284 



D 

Daiquiri. Coast of Cuba, '68 
Danish Islands of West In- 
dies, 255 et seq. 
Davis, General, on Puerto 

Eieo, 232 
Deer Shooting, Barbuda, 

313, 314 
DeGraaf, Governor, of 

Statia, 276, 279 
Denmark, Negotiations of 

IT. S. with, 262 
Desirade, Island of, 326 
Dessalines, Haitien ruler, 

159, 169, 171, 176 
Devaux, Colonel, captures 

New Providence, 14 
Dia de Gracias, Thanksgiv- 
ing, 234 
Diablotin, Little Devil, 327, 

328, 348 
"Diamond Eock," the ship, 

373 
Dias de fiesta, or feast days, 

234 
Diaz, Miguel, finds gold, 211 
Disappearing rivers in Cuba, 

70, 71 
Dominica, Island of, 327, 

XXI. 
Dominica, lands in, 417 
Don Diego Columbus, 215, 

216 
"Don Jorge Juan," 32 



Don Luis, grandson of Chris., 
194 

Dorado, El, the Gilded One, 
412 

Douglass, Frederick, in 
Haiti, 152 

Dragon's Mouth, The, 408 

Drake, Sir Francis. 54, 220 

Dutch Islands in West In- 
dies, XVII. 

"Dutch Loan," The, Sto. Do- 
mingo, 190 

Dutch sailors of Saba, 273 



Editors of Puerto Eico, 224 
Edwards, Bryan, historian of 

Jamaica, 130 
Eleuthera. Island of Ba- 
hamas, 18, 21 
Elizabeth, Queen, 412 
Encomiendas, of Indians, 179 
English rule in W. Indies, 7 
Epitaphs, quaint, in Nevis, 

299, 300 
Escondido, Hidden Harbor, 

Cuba, 37 
Evelyns, the hospitable, 380 
Exuma Sound in Bahama 

archipelago, 21 
Eyre, Governor, 143 



F 



Fallow deer, Barbuda, 309 
Farinaceous Foods of Caribs, 

389 
Faustin I., Emperor of 

Haiti, 172 



424 



INDEX 



Fer de lance,- The, Mar- 
tinique, 360 

Ferdinand VII., statue of, 66 

Ferriere, la, wonderful castle 
pi, 157 

Fig Tree Church, ISTevis, 
299 

Filibusteros, The, 158 

Flamingoes in the Bahamas. 
19 

Foreigner in Haiti, The, 174, 
175 

Forests of Cuba, 85, 87; 
Guadeloupe. 325; of Do- 
minica, 330, 338 

Fortune Island, Bahamas, 
21 

Fountain of Youth, Bim- 
ini Cays, 20 

Fraser, Alex., death of, 380, 
381 

French Islands of West la- 
dies, 318 

Froude, J. A., 132, 397 

Fruits, native, of the Ba- 
hamas, . . ; of Puerto Eico, 
235 ; of West Indies. 417 

Fuerza, old fort in Havana, 
67 

G 

Galleons, treasure-laden, 118, 

198 
Gallows Bay, treasures of, 

266 
Gallows Point, Jamaica, 125 
Game birds and fish, 

Jamaica, 147 
Game preserve, a fine, 309, 

312 
Garden River, Jamaica, 143 
Gardens of the Queen, 51 
Garrote, The, in Havana, 68 



Geffrard, President. Haiti, 

172, 176 
Georgetown, St. Vincent, 378 
Geysers, of Dominica, 336 
Gibara, town and port of, 29 
Gibaro of Puerto Rico, 231 
Gilded One, The, El Dorado, 

413, 414 
"Glass Windows," Eleuthera 

Island, 21 
Gloria, La, Cuban colony, 

115 
"Goat without Horns," The, 

167, 169 
Gold, first American, 207, 

208 212 
Gold in P^uerto Rico, 240, 241 
Gold washing in West In- 
dies, 240, 241 
Gomez, General Maximo, 

101, 187 
Gonaive, Island of, 155 
Gordon Town, Jamaica, 138 
Gosse, P. H., naturalist, in 

Jamaica, 147 
Grande Terre. Guadeloupe, 

318, 322 
Grenada, Island of, 399, 401 
Grenadines, The, 399 
Gritos, political, in Cuba, 

101 
Guacanaybo, Gulf of, 50 
Guachero Bird, The, Trini- 
dad, 415 
Guadeloupe, Island of, XX., 

317, et seq. 
Guaguas, or Omnibuses, 

Havana, 60 
Guanahani, Island of, 18 
Guanajay, excursion to, 70 
Guanica, Port of, 250 
Guantanamo, Bay of, 36 
Guarico, Port of, Haiti, 156 



INDEX 



425 



Guinea Fowl, wild, shooting, 

311, 316 
Guines, Cuba, soil of, 112 

H 

Habanilla, Falls of, 52 
Haiti, routes to, 150 
Haiti-Santo Domingo, area 

of, etc., 1G4 
Haiti, great resources of, 

163, 165, etc. 
Haitien, Cape, 155, 156 
Haitian Soldier, The, 154, 

155 
Haitians, acuteness of the 

160 . 
Haitians, The, according to 
St. John, 167, 169, etc.; pe- 
culiarities of the, 171. 172, 
173, 174 
Hamilton, Ales., birthplace 

of, 298, 301 
Hammocks, Indian, 18 
Harbor Island, 20 
Havana, Harbor of, 53 
Heureaux, President Ulises, 

184, et seq. 
Hidalgo's Pass, Sto. Do- 
mingo, 181 
High Woods, The, 325 
Higueyans, The, 207 
Hispaniola, when settled, 164, 

177 
Hobson, Lieut., in Cuba, 41 
Hole in the Wall, Abaco, 

Bahamas, 20, 22 
Holguin, railroad to, 86 
Homenaje, Castle of the, 189 
Hood, Sir Samuel, 371 
Hooker, Sir Joseph, 332 
Hormigueros, Village of, 250 
House, how to make a, 231 



Huevos, Island of, 415 
Humboldt, Alexander, on 

Caribbees, 4 
Humming-bird's antics, 293 
Hurricane as a scapegoat, 

229 
Hurricane Hill, sunken city 

of, 297 
Hyppolite, Pres., of Haiti, 

152, 160, 176 



Icterus Oberi, bird discovered 

by author, 305 
Iguana, flesh of the, 236, 334 
Imray, Dr. John, 304. 332 
Indians, The Carib, XXII. 
Ingenio, or sugar-mill, 30, 75, 

113 
Insects, poisonous, of Cuba. 

116 
Institute of Jamaica, 146 
Isabella, first American city. 

210 
Isle of Pines, 52, 114; 

Americans in, 71. 



Jacmel and Port-au-Prince, 
Haiti, 150 

Jamaica exports, imports, 
revenues, etc., 135 ; laborers 
and taxpayers, 133; impor- 
tance of, to United States, 
129; counties of, etc., 128; 
distance, etc., from U. S., 
128, 129; natural resources 
of, 122; mountain views 
and features of, 121 

James, King, and Raleigh, 
412 



426 



INDEX 



Jardin des Plantes, Mar- 
tinique, 360, 366 

Jesus del Monte, Cuba, 56 

John Crow Mountains, 
Jamaica, 144 

John Crows, or buzzards, 
416 

Josephine, Empress, birth- 
place of, 365, 366 

Jucaro-San Fernando rail- 
road, 83 

Judgment Cliff, Jamaica, 144 

K 

Kettle Hill, 45 

"Knig-hts of St. Henry," 

Haiti, 171 
Kingsley's "West Indies," 

405, 411 
Kingston, Jamaica, 121, 126 
Kingstown, St. Vincent, 390 



Labat, Pere, 295, 323, 327 
Laborers, The Cuban, 102 
"Ladder," The, of Saba, 272 
"Lake of Fire," near Nassau, 

17, 20 
Lake Dwellers of Venezuela, 

283 
Landfall of Columbus in 

Bahamas, 18 
Lands available in West In- 
dies, 416, 417 
Larcom, Lucy, talented poet- 
ess, 335 
Las Casas and the Spaniards, 

93 
Las Guasimas, 43 
Laudat, Hamlet of, 333 
Lawton, General, in Cuba, 47 



Leelerc, General, and sol- 
diers, 156 

Leeward Islands, 306 

Leger, Minister J. IST., on 
Haiti, 159, 172 

Lemonade, the Duke of, 172, 
175 

Leogane, Gulf of, Haiti, 155 

Leon, Ponce de, in Sto. Do- 
mingo, 207 

I^ewiston, Station of, Cuba, 
_87 

Lianas and Lialines, 88 

Lime Culture, Montserrat 
Island, 304 

Little Devil, or Diablotin, 
327, 328 

Lloyd, Commodore, reference 
to, 124 

Lodge's "War with Spain," 
43 

Long Island, Bahamas, 21 • 

Loup Garou, or were-wolf, of 
Haiti, 166 

Ludlow, General, at El 
Caney, 47; on Cuban cli- 
mate, 115 

Luquillo Range, Puerto Rico, 
242 

M 

MacIsTish, Mr., on Jamaica, 

133, 134, 135, 136, 410 
Madruga, Springs of, 81 
Mahogany, forests of, 85, 86 
"Maine," The, wreck of, 27 
Maisi, Cape, Cuba, 35, 36 
Maja, or Cuban boa, 116 
Maraan-1ois, Vaudoux priest- 
ess, 166 
Manchioneal Bay, in "Tom 
Cringle's Log," 144 



INDEX 



427 



Man Friday, Crusoe's, 403 
Manjak, or Barbados Pitch, 

414 
Manopilon, on Nipe Bay, 31, 

32 
Manzanillo, Cuba, 51; Bay 

of, 180 
Margarita, Island of, 415 
Mariel, Port of, 70 
Marianao, suburb of Havana, 

69 
Marmalade, Duke of, Haiti, 

172 
Maroons, The,' of Jamaica, 

144, 145 
Martinique, Island of, 

XXIII. 
Matanzas to Havana, rounl- 

trip, 74; city of, 78; bom- 
bardment of, harbor of, 28 
Mather, Cotton, treasure 

story, 198, et seq. 
Mayaguez, Puerto Eico, 249 
Mayari Kiver, Cuba, 33 
Maynard, Lieut., captures 

Blackbeard, 13 
"Merrimac," The, Cuba, 41 
Miles, General, in Puerto 

Eico, 250 
Military rule in Puerto Eico. 

248 
Milk Eiver Baths, Jamaica, 

144 
Millot, vale of, Haiti, 156 
Milne, James, St. Vincent, 

391 
Minas, Las, Cuban colony, 

115 
Mole San Nicholas, Haiti, 

155 
Mona Passage and Island, 

249 



Moneague, Jamaica, 143 

Mongoose, The, in Jamaica, 
125, 126 

Monkeys of Saint Kitts, 294, 
295 

Monos, Island of, 415 

Montbars the Exterminator, 
316 

Monte Christi. Sto. Domingo. 
180, 181 

Montego Bay, Jamaica, 120, 
127 

Montserrat, Island of, 303 

Monte Tina, highest Antil- 
lean peak, 165 

Moore Town, Jamaica, Mar- 
oon's capital, 145 

Morant Bay, Jamaica, 143 

Morgan, Sir Henry, 123, 125 

Morne Calabasse, Mar- 
tinique, 361; Balisier, 361, 
368 ; Eouge, 361 ; Eonde, 
St. Vincent, 380, 383, 390; 
of Eoseau, Dominica, 332 ; 
St. Andrew, St. Vincent, 
391 

Morro Castle, Havana, 67; 
Puerto Eico, 244, 245; of 
Santiago, 39, 40, 41 

Mountain climbing in West 
Indies, 287 

Mountain Lake, Dominica, 
343 

Mount Misery, Saint Kitts, 
286 

Mountains of the Caribbee 
chain, 286, 287 

Mountains, of Dominica, 330 

Munson Line to Cuba, 32, 33, 
35 

Myiarchus Oberi, new bird, 
335 



428 



INDEX 



Napoleon, first wife of, 364, 

365, 366 
Naraiijo, Port of, Cuba, 29 
Nassau, description of, 15; 

New Providence, pirates 

of 12 ; hotels of, distance 

from U. S., 16 
Natural history of Jamaica, 

147 
Negro proverbs. West Indies, 

148, 149 
Nelson, Lord, married in 

Nevis, 298, 299 
Nevis, beautiful island of, 

297 
New Providence, captured by 

Americans. 14 ; when 

founded, 10 
NichoUs, Dr., of Dominica, 

332 337 
Nipc'Pay of, Cuba, 31, 32 
Nipe Bay, railroad to, 87 
Nissage-Saget, President, 

153, 172, 176 
Nord Alexis, President of 

Haiti, 1903, 176 
Nouet, Governor, 324 
Nuevitas, Harbor of, 29 ; rail- 
road to, 84 



O 



Obeah, sorcerers of, 145 
Obispo Street, Havana, 62 
Ocampo, navigator, 23 
Ojeda, Spanish explorer, 415 
011a podrida, pepper-pot, 390 
Orange, Port of, 30; Port of, 

'Statia, 276 
Orchids in Cuban forests, 

88 



Ovando, The atrocious, 213 
Oviedo, historian, 216 
Oxen, Cuban, how yoked and 

worked, 103, 104 
Ozama River, Sto. Domingo, 

212, 214 



Pagerie, la, Josephine's 

home, 365 
Paisano, The Cuban, 92, 98, 

112 
Pajarito, hamlet in Sto. Do- 
mingo, 194 
Palisadoes, Jamaica, 121 
Palma, Don Tomas Estrada, 

51, 101, 102 
Pan de Cabanas, Cuba, 24, 
Pan de Mariel, Cuba, 24 
Panama, The sack of, by 

Morgan, 158 
Pantalones, The Cuban, 91 
Papa-lois, high priest of the 

Vaudoux, 166 
Papiamento, patois of Cur- 
acao, 282 
Paradise Peak, St. Martin, 

316 
Parasitic plants, Cuba, 88 
Parque Isabel, Havana, 60, 

67 
Parrot, The imperial, 348 
Parrots, of the Bahamas, 19 
Patois, spoken in Haiti, 170 
Pelee, Montague, 326, 354, 
355, 357, 361, 367, 368; 
eruption of, 367, 369 
Penn. Admiral, captures 

Jamaica, 123 
Pensions, Cuban, how ab- 
sorbed, 100 
Pepper-pot, or cassareep, 389 



IXDEX 



429 



Pesos, The itching pahii for. 

223 
Petion, Haitian president, 

171, 176 
Phipps, Sir William, in 

Jamaica, 147; and treasure. 

199. et seq. 
Photographing in Puerto 

Eico. 223, 226 
Pimento groves of Jamaica, 

146 
Pinar del Eio, 71, 112, 114 
Pineapple, where first found, 

18 
Pink Pearls, in Bahamas, 13 
Pinzon, Vicente Yanez, 227 
Pirates in Cuba. 84; of the 

West Indies. 11. 13 
Pitch Lake, Trinidad, 413, 

414 
Pitons, The, St. Lucia, 374 
Pitt, William, on reciprocity, 

130, 131 
Planters, Hospitable, of Saint 

Kitts, 288 
Plowing in Cuba with a 

stick, 78 
Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe, 

321 
Ponce, City of, Puerto Rico, 

250 
Ponce de I^eon in Puerto 

Rico, 227, 240 
Ponce de Leon's castle, 246 
Poev, Seiior, on Cuban fishes, 

70 
Port Antonio, Jamaica, 121, 

127, 145 
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 151, 

152, 154, 155 
Port de Paix, Haiti, and Tor- 

tuga, 157 



Port Royal, Jamaica, 121, 

122, 123, 124 
Port of Spain, Trinidad, 410, 

411 
Porter, Admiral D. D., on St. 

Thomas, 260 
Portland Parish. Jamaica, 

143 
Prado of Havana, 59, 60 
Presidents, various, of Sto. 

Domingo, 186 
Products, varied, of Cuba. 

Ill 
Proverbs of the Blacks, 

Jamaica, 148, 149 
Puerto Plata, Sto. Domingo, 

197, et seq., 204 
Puerto Principe, City of, 29 
Puerto Ricaus, ungrateful, 

230; typical, the, 231 
Puerto Rico as author first 

saw it, 222 ; natural feat- 
ures of, 237 
Puerto Riqueno, traits of the, 

225 
Punta, The Point, Havana, 

68 
"Purchas his Pilgrims," 

quoted from, 93 



Q 



Quadrupeds, indigenous, of 

the Bahamas, 19; of 

Puerto Rico, 235 
Quebec Line, The, 414 
"Queen of the Antilles," 110, 

120 
Queen's Staircase, Nassau, 

17 



430 



INDEX 



R 



Rabacca, Carib Indian, 388 
Railroad. Havana-Santiago, 

IV., 73 
Railroads in Sto. Domingo, 

189 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, i04, 412, 

414 
Reciprocity between U. S. 

and Jamaica, 129, et seq. 
Redonda, Rock of, 286 
Registry of [N^elson's mar- 
riage, 299 
Remains of Columbus, 195 
Resources and area of 
islands, 415, 418; of Cuba, 
109 
Restos, or remains of Colum- 
bus. 191, et seq. 
Revolutionist, A Cuban, 99 
Richmond estate. St. Vin- 
cent, 380, 382 
Rio Cobre, Jamaica, 123, 142 
Rio del Oro, or Yaqui, St. 

Domingo, 180 
Rio Piedras, P. Rico, 248 
Roads and byways of 

Jamaica, 137 
Roaring River, Jamaica, 146 
Roddam, The steamer, 371 
Rodney, Lord, sacks 'Statia 
Island, 276, 277; statue of, 
Jamaica, 142 
Rogers, Capt. Woods, in 

Bahamas, 11, 13 
Roosevelt, Lieut. Col., in 

Cuba, 43, 45, 46, 48 
Roseau, Dominica, town of, 

331, 333 
Rough Riders, The, 43, 47 



Royal Mail steamers, West 
Indies, 128, 150 

Royal Road of Puerto Rico, 
252 

Roxelane, Riviere, Martin- 
ique, 361 

Ruined cities of Mexico, 210 

Rulers of Haiti, 171, 172, 175, 
176 

Rum Cay, 21 ; wreckers of, 
22 

Rutland Vale, St. Vincent, 
391 

Ryswick, Peace of, 158 



S 



Sacrifices, Human, in Haiti, 

166, 167, 168, 169 
Saba, northernmost Carib- 

bee Isle, 269 
St. Ann. Parish of, Jamaica, 

143, 146 
St. Parts., Island of, 315, 

316 
St. Eustatius, Volcano of, 

277; island, 275, 276, et 

seq. 
St. John, Island of, 257, 258 ; 

Sir Spencer, on Llaiti, 165, 

166, 167 
St. Georges, Grenada, 399 
St. Kitts, Nevis, Montser- 

rat, 285, et seq. 
St. Lucia, Island of, 369, 374 
St. Martin, Island of, 316 
St. Pierre, Martinique, 356, 

357, 358, 360, 361; de- 
struction of, 367, 370 
St. Thomas, Island of, 268, 

259, 260, 261, 262 



INDEX 



431 



St. Vincent, Island of, 
XXIV., 375 

Salee, Riviere, Guadeloupe, 
318 

Salnave, Haitian President, 
172, 176 

Salt pans in the Bahamas, 
21 

Salute, first, to American 
flag, 279, 280 

Samana Bay, 180, 205, 206 

Sampson, Admiral, report be- 
fore Santiago, 40 

Sanchez, Santo Domingo, 
180 

Sandy Bay, St. Vincent, 387, 
390 

Sandy Point, St. Kitts, 292 

San Juan, 43, 44, 45, 46; in 
Puerto Rico, 244 

Sannois, estate of, 365 

San Salvador, Bahamas, 18, 
21 

Sans Souci, Palace of, Haiti, 
156 

Santa Barbara, Town of, 205 

Santa Clara, City of, 81 

Santa Cruz, Island of, 256, 
257 

Santiago, City of, Cuba, 42, 
43, et seq. ; arrival at by 
rail, 89 ; de los Caballeros, 
179; Province of, 85 

Santo Domingo, natural re- 
sources of, 178; old de- 
scription of, 216; 'city of, 

■ 209. et seq. 

Savana la Mar, Sto. Do- 
mingo, 207 

Sayle, Captain, founds New 
Providence, 10 

Schools of Puerto Rico, 251 

Sea of Fire near Nassau, 20 



Sea Gardens of Nassau, 19 
Sea Treasure off Coast of 

Sto. Domingo, 197, et seq. 
Security of life in Cuba, 106 
Senoras, seiioritas, 106 
Serpent, The, Per de Lance, 

360 
Serpent's Mouth, The, 408_ _ 
Serpent worshipers of Haiti, 

166, 167, 170 
Sevilla, first town in 

Jamaica, 123 
Seward, Secretary, treats for 

islands, 261 
Shafter, General, 38, 44 
Sherman, Rev. Father, on 

Puerto Rico, 238 
"Sick Lady Cured," The, 204 
Sierra de Cristal in Cuba, 34 
Sierra Maestra of Cuba, 51 
Siesta, in Cuba, 116 
Siffleur montagne, a bird, 334 
Silk-cottons, bulks of the, 88 
Silver, barrow loads of, 259 
Simon Sam, President of 

Haiti, 176 
Slavery in Llaiti, 169, 170 _ 
Slave trade, debate on, in 

1775, 130,' 131 
Sloane, Sir Hans, on 

Jamaica, 147 
Soleil Coucher, or Sunset 

Bird, 334 
Soltera, A, or spinster, 105 
Sombrero, Island of, 315 
Soufriere, Guadeloupe, climb- 
ing the, 324; crater of the, 
326; the, of Montserrat, 
305; the petit, 338; of St. 
Lucia, 374; of St. Vincent, 
375, 380; camping on the, 
383,387; crater of the, 383; 



432 



IxNDEX 



eruption of the, 375, 380 ; 

Bird, St. Vincent, 384, 

385 
Soulouque, ''emperor" of 

Haiti, 171, 172, 176 
Spaniard, The, in history, 93 
Spaniards in the Bahamas, 

10; in Cuba, 95, 96, 97 
Spanish Town, Jamaica, 123, 

127, 192 
Sturges family, Montserrat, 

304 
Subterranean Rivers, Cuba, 

70 
Sucrerie, la Pagerie, 366 
Sugar cane, extent of culti- 
vation, 75, 113 
Sulphur found in Saba's 

volcano, 275 
Sunset Bird of Dominica, 

334, 335 
Surrender Tree, The, 44 
Swizzle-stick, uses of the, 394 



T 



Tanamo, Port of, Cuba, 29, 
34 

Tasajo, or dried beef, 99 

Tascher de la Pagerie, M., 
364, 365 

Teach, John, or "Black- 
beard," 11, 13 

Tertre, Pere du, mention of, 
327 

Three-fingered Jack, Ja- 
maica, 144. 

"Thunderbolts" (celts) in the 
Bahamas, 10 

Tobacco, cultivation of, 76 
113; first found in Baha- 
mas, by Columbus, 18; 
Vuelto Abajo, 70 



Tobago, Island of, 402, et 
seq. ; history ot, 404; re- 
sources of, 405 
Toledo blades, found in Sto. 

Domingo, 183 
Toledo, Donna Maria de, 215 
Tories, irruption of, in Baha- 
mas, 13 
Torrecilla de Colon, 214 
Tortola, Island of, 266 
■ Tortuga, buccaneer's island, 

Haiti, 157 
Toussaint I'Ouverture, 169 
Trade, between Jamaica and 

U. S., 134 
Trade Winds, 393 
Treasure-laden galleons. 

where sunk, 118 
Treasure, sunken, in the sea, 

202, etc. 
Trembleurs, the, 334 
Trinidad, Cuba, 51 
Trinidad, Island of, XXVI., 
407, et seq.; area, popula- 
tion, etc., 409 ; discovery of. 
407, 408; Columbus in, 
408; Pitch Lake of, 413- 
414; salaries paid in, 409 
Trocha , the, of Ciego de 

Avila, 82 
Trollope, Anthony, 331, 333 
Turkey, origin of the, 237 
Turks' Islands, Bahamas, 21 
Turquino, Eio, 50; Pico, 50 
Turuqueira, Guadeloupe, 317 



U 

United Fruit Company, Ja- 
maica, 128, 145 

United Railways, of Cuba. 
58, 71, 74 



INDEX 



433 



b 



U. S. Government in Puerto 

Eico, 229 
United States, importance of, 

to Jamaica, 129 
Uria, of Bahamas, 19 

V 

Van Home, Sir William, 31 
Vaudoux, or voodoo, in Haiti, 

161, 166, 167, 168, 170 
Vedado, baths of, 6, 69 
Vega Real, or Royal Plain, 

182 
Vegas, the, of Vuelta Abajo, 

113 
Vegetal wonders of Cuban 

forests, 87 
Veragua, Duke of, first, 194; 
^ last, 228 

Vernon, Admiral, in Cuba, 36 
Vespucci, and Ojeda, 4l5 
Victoria de las Tunas, 85 
Vieque, island near P. Rico. 
Vigie, the, of Saint Lucia, 

373 
Villa Nueva, station of, 71, 

74 
Ville de Paris, frigate, 142 
Virgin Islands, Virgin 

Gorda, 266 
Volante, where used, 79 
Volcanic island, most north- 
ern, 273 
Volcanoes, Caribbean, 326 
Vuelto Abajo, The, 70 

W 

Wag Water, River, Jamaica, 

123 
Wallace, A. W., on ancient 

West Indies, 3 
Walled city of Sto. Domingo, 

217 



Wallibou, St. Vincent, 380, 

381 
Warner, Sir Thomas, epitaph 

on, 296 
Washington, George, in West 

Indies, 396, 397 
Washington, Lawrence, in 

Cuba, 36 ; in Barbados, 396 
Water Supply of Havana, 58 
Watling's Island, 12, IS 
Watt, Edmund, Dominica, 

336 
"West Indian Gibraltar," the 

286, 373 
West Indians, the last, 

XXIL, 342 
White man, in Haiti, 174 
"White Wings," the Cuban, 

57 
Whittier, the Poet, allusion 

to, 304, 335 
Windward Islands, 306 
Wood, General, in Cuba, 47, 

48, 60 
Woz y Gil, Seiior, 196 
Wreckers of Bahamas, 22 



Yallahs River, Jamaica, 144 
Yaqui River, Sto. Domingo, 

180 
Yaqui and Yuna, valleys of 

the 207 
Yellow Caribs, St. Vincent, 

379, 380 
Y. M. C. Association in 

Cuba, 60 
Yumuri, valley of, 79 
Yunque, Mountain in Cuba, 

35 

Z 

Zizi, guide in Dominica, 334 



LBJe'08 



